THE SOUTH-WESTERN CORNER OF THE CAPE COLONY
The abundant winter rains render this, one of the wheat districts of the Colony, independent of irrigation in winter. The farms, in size about 2000 acres, appear too large to be profitably worked by poor farmers. Ploughing is done perfunctorily, and no rotation of leguminous crops with serials is attempted, because it is believed that there is no market in Cape Town for beans and other legumins. Mr. Willcocks suggests as a remedy the construction of an agricultural railway through this district, so that the disposal of fodder would be simplified. He also proposes the exchange of seeds between Egypt, which is rich in legumins, and the Colony, which is rich in fodders capable of existing in conditions of extreme drought. He thinks the luscious emerald burseem (Egyptian clover), grown in rotation with wheat, might stock the soil with nitrogen and possibly destroy the rust in wheat which is universally complained of. Indeed he declares that legumins might be grown with cereals all over the Colony with great benefit to agriculture. Lentils are a wholesome and sustaining fare, and beans form the principal food of donkeys and poultry in Egypt. In India horses, sheep, and cattle, Mr. Willcocks says, are fed on “gram,” another lentil; and the present writer can testify to more than that, for not only do the horses fatten, but so also do the families of the native “syces” employed to take care of them! This proves that gram, if properly used, is as nourishing for the biped as for the quadruped world. But the art of using the lentil is not generally known. The lentil worked into a purée, and diluted and warmed with curry gravy, makes one of the finest adjuncts to the breakfast-table imaginable. Served hot in a sauce tureen it can be eaten with fish, hard-boiled eggs, biscuits, or any other light food which may be at hand. This sauce supplies the stamina and flavour of a meal.
To return. The Wynberg district is famed for its vineyards, which, lately, have suffered through phylloxera. Much of the grape-juice is converted into the brandy that works such havoc with the natives. Mr. Willcocks proposes as an alternative the introduction of the resinous firs common in Greece for the purpose of converting the grapes into the light wines which are manufactured by the Greek farmers; but it is to be feared that the native palate, tutored to the smack of more fiery fluid, will not approve the delicate flavour of the resinato wines.
In regard to the Breede River Valley, expensive river and canal works will be needed to properly irrigate the district, but these will repay the expenditure. In the Touws River Valley, in years of ordinary winter rain, good wheat crops can be grown on the alluvium of the river, which crops might be made permanent by the construction of fifteen-feet high weirs at suitable sites, and the leading off of small canals from the up-stream sides.
In the karoo veldt, in the Prince Albert district, the light rainfall, together with the violent slope of the country, renders numerous irrigation schemes impossible. But the karoo bushes need and are worth development, otherwise they will in time be exterminated. Our authority gives in detail a scheme by which this development may be accomplished, and declares that if the right method of preservation were adopted, it would probably be possible to feed three sheep where one can be fed to-day.
TEA FARM, SHOWING COOLIES PICKING
Reproduced by permission from the Natal Government Collection
The Oudtshoorn district is the garden of the Cape Colony. It enjoys a splendid climate and water-supply. The speciality of the Oudtshoorn Valley is ostrich farming. The birds in thousands feed in the lucerne fields on the banks of the Oliphants River. Crops of tobacco and potatoes, orange groves, vineyards and orchards are everywhere to be seen. There are still some 70,000 acres of land in the valley capable of development by irrigation if water could be found for them—and here many schemes are possible. “Unirrigated land in the valley, on which there falls annually from seven to ten inches of rain, is worth scarcely £1 an acre; while the same land, when irrigated, is worth from £30 to £100 per acre.” It is impossible here to describe the practical remedies and improvement schemes suggested; the object of quotation is merely to give on authority, a concise outline of the rich vista that has been extended before us, and the perpetual prosperity that may be secured to the South African Continent if the Government should consent to adopt the measures suggested.
In the advanced farms stock are watered from tanks fed by subsoil water raised by windmills. Wherever there are no permanent springs these mills, Mr. Willcocks thinks, might be made compulsory. He says: “I have seen stock drinking from shallow pools which contained mud rather than water, and in which dead sheep were festering. It might be possible to legislate that, if a reservoir is constructed, it must be fenced round and protected from entry by stock. The reservoir dam should be pierced by a pipe discharging into a trough, from which cattle should be given to drink.” This would protect the water from pollution and save the cattle from contracting rinderpest and spreading it all over the country.
The farms have a general area of some 12,000 acres each, with about twelve acres of cultivated land per farm. This means about one acre of arable land to a thousand acres of pastoral land. The cultivated area is divided thus—one acre of fruit or vegetable garden to about eleven acres under wheat, Indian corn, lucerne, and oat-hay. Here, the veldt will carry one sheep—these are principally merinos—or a goat, to four acres; or one ox to sixteen acres.[10]
North of Britstown the pan and vale formation begins, a formation consisting of alternate ridges of rounded dolomite hills and flat depressions which are either vales or pans. Vales have outlets for the water which collects in them, pans usually have none. Some are natural reservoirs of great capacity. The pans, when not brack, are the natural reservoirs of the country. Mr. Willcocks has shown how both pans and vales may be dealt with to the best advantage, and how the direct storage of water and the indirect storage of it should be effected.
Still touring in the Cape Colony, he turned his attention to the Kat, Kabossi, Keishma, Klipparts, and other streams near the sea, which have a perennial discharge with a minimum of about 100 cubic feet per second, yet which are scarcely utilised. On this subject he reported: “The value of this water near the sea will never be appreciated till the idea is abandoned that cereals are the only crops worth growing and that manures are not necessary. The attempt to grow cereals year after year without manure and without rotation of crops has made the wheat crops so liable to rust that agriculture is discounted everywhere near the sea. Wherever perennial water of any kind can be obtained in the important stock districts of the Eastern Provinces, lucerne, at least, might be planted to the utmost limits of the water.”
Pure Negretti Merino Ram
Locusts are ubiquitous; but these in the footganger stage might be easily destroyed before they could develop into the pest they now are. Mr. Willcocks thus describes a mode of dealing with them: “At the foot of some low hills in the karoo bush I came across great numbers of the footgangers. They were jet black, and were very easily distinguished. Indeed it appeared as though some giant had just walked over the veldt and sprinkled it with great splashes of jet-black ink. If I had been a Kaffir, and had known that a reward would have been given for the location of locusts in this stage, it would have been a simple matter to have gone to the nearest magistrate and reported the appearance of the footgangers. A few men, with washing soap and water and sprays could have killed many millions in a few hours.” He proposes that the States should combine and annually devote £20,000 to the extermination of these creatures before they take wing and become uncombatable. The idea is an excellent one; but the method of carrying it into effect will need to be “slim” in its strictures, otherwise the remedy, in homeopathic fashion, may be productive of the disease! In India, for instance, where several annas are offered for every deadly snake destroyed, these pests are occasionally cherished and bred as a comfortable source of income. In the Deccan, a few years since, a nest of these reptiles was discovered near the writer’s bungalow, and the farming process was explained by an Anglo-Indian friend. Every dead snake being worth three or four annas, it was to the interest of the enterprising native to rear as many as possible, so that when hard up he could slay one of his “stock” and receive the coveted reward!
The Aliwal North, Herschel, and New England districts lie between 4500 and 6000 feet above sea-level, and have a rainfall of some thirty inches per annum. A good Indian corn crop may be counted on every year, and wheat in five years out of six. Only a third of the cultivable area is put under cultivation, though the grasses are good and one acre can support a sheep. Agriculture is generally backward, rotations of crops and manuring being unknown. Turnips and swedes for winter feeding of stock have been raised with success.