VOL. LXII
INDIANAPOLIS, APRIL 27, 1907.
NO. 17
NEW SOUTH   WALES.
Interesting   Letter   on    Farming,
Livestock,  Graining,  Etc
By William  Bruce Eefflngwell.
New South Wales is one or the six
states of Australia. Sydney, a city of
500,000 inhabitants, is the capital and
port of entry from America.      I visited
recline and afford sights of beauty beyond expression. It is said of Sydney
Harbor, although eight miles from its
entrance from the ocean to the city proper, its inlets and outlets form shore lines
exceeding 155 miles, and that all the
vessels of every foreign nation in the
world could float in this harbor, hidden
in its recesses, and not a single ship of
one nation could be seen from the ship
of another.
the State has realized that the rate must
be hastened in order to fill up the empty
places, develop the yet utiexploitad territories, and provide the bone and siuew
that may be called upon to defend her
shores. Effective steps have already
been taken to achieve this result, and the
Government scheme of assisted immigra-
ion is importing into New South Wales a
■toady stream of newcomers ot the agricultural class.
give country need by no means confine his
activities in this direction. A system of
mixed farming, of cropping and stock-
raising, is becoming popular. It keeps
the farmer occupied in the long period
when he cau do little or nothing to help
the wheat, and increases the productivity of his farm, and consequently his profits. In the New England districts, on
the table lands, are numbers of settlers
who combine fruit-growing with crop-rais-
A Farm on the Otlur Side      of the      World - New    Smith  Wales,  Australia.
New South Wales in the winter time—
they told me it was winter; if they had
not, I most certainly could not have
named the season of the year. Every day
waa cool and lovely, just about as cool
in the morning as we have mornings in
the United States which verge to frost, al
though the frost does not appear, but
when we feel it is apt to glisten before us
any morning and hang like beans of silver on the bended grass and plants. All
days were alike, quite cool in the morning
and evening but sufficiently warm to go
without an overcoat during midday. Their
winter was precisely like the October
months in Indiana and Illinois,—a time
when the sumac is changing to a more
brilliant purple and the squirrels are laying in their winter stores. I soon found
that I knew but very little about New
South Wales, for, instead of wild men
of Australia and a forsaken country. I
mingled daily with English speaking people who were prospering just as much as
the people of America, and have untold
resources and opportunities that they are
not taking advantages of.
Sydney is a magnificent city and equals
by comparison any city of its size in
America. It surpasses most of our
cities in beauty for it lies on the shores of
Sydney   Harbor,     where  the  hills   gently
New South Wales has awakened to the
fact that her millions of acres of productive farm lands have lain idle too long.
Being an English Colony, she very naturally looked to England for settlers. She
did this for many years, but learned what
many of the British Colonies have also
learned, that though England has been
and is willing to assist her Colonists, yet,
because of her limited farm areas she cannot supply the demand for those who understand farming and stock raising. You
cannot take men from the shops and factories and place them on the farm expecting them to make an immediate success
of a new calling. A farmer must first
be educated  to his calling.
Even the briefest consideration of the
figures connected with the commerce and
production of New South Wales cannot
fail to drive home the fact that during
the past ten years wonderful progress has
been made in every avenue of agricultural and industrial life; the record is, in
fact, one of ever-increasing development
of the state's resources, and points indubitably to the steady increase of her
wealth and of her importance. Tho
population of New South Wales has
doubled in the last quarter of a century,
now standing at over 1,500,000. This
increase  is  a  most  substantial   one;  but
It is to agriculture that one must look
in estimating the solid and permanent advance made by any young country, and
the figures presented by New South
Wales for the past ten years give a record
of phenomenal progress. Eleven years
ago, in March, 1896, the total area under crop in the State was 1,348,000 acres.
In the same month of 1906, the area had
more than doubled, standing at 2,838,081
acres. The most striking wns in tha
cultivation of wheat, the acreage under
this cereal having leaped from 596,684
acres to 1,939,447 and the crop from 5,-
195,312 bushels, to 20,737,200. In
this decade, also. New South Wales became one of the wheat exporting countries
of the world. 1897 was the first year in
which the production exceeded the consumption, and since that date New South
Wales has exported over 32,500,000 bushels. Rapid as this expansion has been,
only the fringe of the wheat-growing
capabilities of the State has so far been
touched, and 18,000,000 acres of fine
wheat country are still lying idle and undeveloped, awaiting the axe and the
plow.
Although wheat-growing is the principal outlet for agricultural energy in New
South Wales, the man who thinks of
settling  in   this   prosperous   and   progres-
ing, apples doing splendidly in these lo-
calties. Next in importance to wheat-
growing is sheep-raising. There are, at .
present moment, nearly 10,000 flocks of
sheep in the state of 500 sheep and under
and 3,200 flocks numbering between 500
and 1,000 each; so it will be seen that
sheep-raising is practiced by a large number of small farmers and stock raisers.
The Merino predominates, but latterly the
farmers are taking to growing a good
style of cross-bred that produces both
wool and first class mutton, and is altogether a very profitable animal to handle.
There is a limitless field in New South
Wales for the mutton trade, which is as
yet scarcely touched. Wheat farmers
run their sheep on natural grasses, and
on the stubble and growth in the cultivated fields that are not in use. The
sheep is a cleansing and fertilizing agent
all over the country, and never fails to
improve the capacity of the pasture unless the land be overstocked. A good
Merino flock will make an average of 7
pounds of wool, worth today over 25
cents per pound in the grease.
By the close of 1906 the number of
sheep in the State totaled 35,000,000. Of
recent years there has been a steady increase in the number of small flocks; bnt
it   is.   nevertheless,   becoming   more   and