1 Apri, 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 247 
5 morgen under wheat and oats, and could feed double the number of stock 
at present, but am always careful not to overstock, for fear of a dry summer.” 
We know of a Karroo farm in the Graaff-Reinet district, now owned 
by one of the leading and progressive farmers of that district which was not 
worth more than £3,500 at the outside valuation before it was taken in 
hand by its present owner. Previous to being taken in hand by its 
present owner, it was let at £90 per annum, and, were it not for a small shop 
or store upon the premises, even this rental could not have been paid by the 
tenant. 
The enterprising present owner took over this unpromising farm amid the 
_croakings of several prophets who prophesied speedy disaster. He set to work 
and built a weir across the Sunday’s River at a cost of about £500, by means 
of which he can now flood from 150 to 200 acres of lucerne ground. Although 
before he built the weir and laid down the lucerne fields, a tenant could not 
pay arental of £90 per annum without the assistance of the small country 
“shop,” the present owner has been offered £800 a year rent for this same 
farm, and could let it at a rental of £1,000 a year if he wished. Capitalising 
the rental of £800 per annum at 5 per cent., the value of this farm to-day 
would be about £16,000, as against £3,500 before the weir and lucerne fields 
were in existence upon it. An Oudtshoorn lucerne farm (Zeekoegat), includ- 
ing a stock of about 1,500 ostriches, was recently sold for the sum of £40,000. 
The property is only 3,268 morgen in extent, of which about 800 morgen are 
arable. 
There are immense fields of lucerne in Argentina, where it has taken the 
place of the innutritious and scanty native grasses. In the Corowa district 
alone (New South Wales) there are about 21,000 acres. There are individual 
farmers in Australia having as much as 3,000, 4,000, and 7,000 acres of lucerne. 
A recent Australian writer remarks, ‘“‘ There will be a much larger average of 
lucerne laid down every year, as not only the value is so much appreciated, but 
many owners who have let their lands on the half system for wheat have made 
a condition that the last year the land should be laid down in lucerne. I con- 
sider there is a great future before us in this plant.” Having given a few 
instances of the value of lucerne ground here and in Australia, and having 
shown what the Australians think of ‘‘the king of fodder plants,” we now 
proceed to discuss the 
ADVANTAGES OF LUCERNE-GROWING. 
Lucerne fields, unlike cereal crops, are not destroyed by locusts, rust,. 
hail, and drought. Locusts seldom touch lucerne, rust does not trouble it, hail 
may batter but cannot destroy it like cereals. If battered level with the ground 
by hail, in two weeks after there will be waving a field of magnificent fodder, 
5 or 10 tons to the acre. A hail-battered wheat crop, two weeks after, would 
be but a memory—and a sorrowful one at that. Drought that will kill lucerne, 
when once it is properly established, will kill the hardy Karroo itself! A field 
of lucerne, when once established, will last, like a fruit orchard, for years; and 
will require comparatively little yearly expense and attention to mantain in a 
state of profitable Pood ue ron: In Oudtshoorn there are fields 15 to 20 years 
old as good and better than they were ten years ago. In Graaff-Reinet 
there is a plot of lucerne said to be about seventy years old—probably 
self-sown from time to time. In New Mexico there are said to be fields which 
haye been under this crop for more than 100 years. The revenue or profit 
from lucerne tields is both far greater and far more certain than that from 
cereal crops in the Karroo. To the Karroo stock farmer especially, lucerne is 
of inestimable value. 1t is one of the hardiest, yet heaviest yielding, of fodder 
crops. Jf water cannot be given to lucerne fields for six or eight months, no 
harm results. In the case of cereal crops they would be destroyed. When, 
after six or eight months’ drought, water is again available for lucerne, this. 
accommodating crop is ready to commence yielding enormous quantities of 
valuable fodder at once. With lucerne there are no: yearly or half-yearly 
