| WHEAT PRODUCED. | AREA UNDER WHEAT. | AVERAGE CROP PER ACRE. | VALUE PER BUSHEL. | ||
| Year. | Bushels. | Acres. | Bsh. | lb. | s. d. |
| 1866-7 | 6,561,451 | 457,628 | 14 | 20 | 4 5 |
| 1867-8 | 2,579,894 | 550,456 | 4 | 40 | 7 1 |
| 1868-9 | 5,173,970 | 533,035 | 9 | 42 | 5 0 |
| 1869-70 | 3,052,320 | 532,135 | 5 | 45 | 5 3 |
| 1870-71 | 6,961,164 | 604,761 | 11 | 30 | 5 0 |
| VALUE OF BREAD-STUFFS AND GRAIN EXPORTED. | |
| Year. | |
| 1867 | £1,037,085 |
| 1868 | 568,491 |
| 1869 | 890,343 |
| 1870 | 470,828 |
| 1870 | 1,254,444 |
In the following year, 1871-72, the decrease of production was very great. There were 692,508 acres under wheat-crops in the colony. The produce was only 3,967,079 bushels, and the average produce per acre 5 bush. 44 lbs. What was the amount of wheat exported up to the end of 1872 I am unable to say. In reference to the above table, I must call attention to the fact that the exported articles of which the value is given are not only breadstuffs, but breadstuffs and grain, and the sums named as their value are, therefore, in excess of the real value of the wheat. But the other grain exported is very little. In the year 1871 the total value of the agricultural exports was £1,254,444, whereas the value of the breadstuffs was £1,253,342, leaving the value of all other grain at £1,102. The amount is not sufficient materially to affect the comparison made in the above table. Of this wealth of wheat sent away from South Australia, the other Australasian colonies, including New Zealand, consume the greatest quantity, New South Wales being the best customer. In 1867, when the average produce of the last harvest had exceeded fourteen bushels to the acre, Great Britain was the largest buyer. The price realised was only 4s. 5d. a bushel, and it was worth while to send it home;—but, generally, South Australia is the granary of the colonies around her. She sends supplies also, small indeed in amount, to Cape Town, the Mauritius, and New Caledonia, and even to India and the ports of China.
So far I have ventured to say what South Australia does in producing wheat, but I dare not venture to say what she might do. English farmers will not think much of a system of farming which does not produce an average crop of above ten bushels to the acre,—nor will they think much of an average price of 5s. 4d. a bushel. The English farmer could hardly pay his rent, and manure and crop his land, and get in his harvest and take it to market, with a total gross result of £2 13s. 4d. an acre,—more especially as he would only repeat his wheat crop once in every four years. The answer to this is, of course, that the circumstances of the farmer in the two countries are very different. In South Australia the farmer pays no rent, does not manure his land, pays but little wages either for getting his crop in or out of the land, and grows wheat every year, instead of once in four years. The operations of the two men are distinctly different, and must continue to be different. But it may be well worth while to inquire whether the South Australian farmer might not learn a lesson in his business which would greatly increase his profits.
There can, I think, be no doubt that the cockatoo of South Australia is a very bad farmer,—and that he is so because he has hitherto been able to make a living by bad farming. With reference to the amount of produce, it must be admitted at once that the existing combination of soil and climate in the colony, though it has shown itself to be favourable to the growth of wheat in a country of vast area, is not only unfavourable to heavy crops, but is prohibitory in regard to a high average. Every now and then an average produce of fourteen bushels to the acre may be obtained, as in 1864 and 1867,—and there are districts in the colony in which the produce has on such years exceeded twenty bushels to the acre. In 1867 the average in the Robe district was twenty-three bushels to the acre. But there are, at any rate at present, sources of injury to the wheat crop which make the business of farming very precarious. In one year the red dust will almost destroy the crop, in another year,—as happened during the harvest-time of 1872,—the year last past,—a cloud of locusts will come and eat up wheat and grass throughout the country. That the red rust might be conquered by skill in farming at some future time is probable. And it is not impossible that altered circumstances of soil and climate, produced by population and cultivation, may be unfavourable to the locusts. With the drawbacks as they at present exist, the average produce of wheat must continue to be small. But it might probably be very much higher than it is.
Nearly two-thirds of all the cultivated land of the colony are under wheat every year. In 1870-71 there were 959,000 acres under cultivation in the colony; of these, 200,000 acres were under crops other than wheat; 154,000 were fallow, or laid down with artificial grasses; and 605,000 were under wheat. So that every acre of cultivated land is expected to bear wheat twice in three years. With us the best approved rotation of crops requires the land to give wheat only once in four years. But in fact the expectation and practice of the regular cockatoo farmer demands a crop of wheat every year from his land. The figures above given include, of course, cultivated land of all kinds,—and in all hands. There are agriculturists in South Australia who are endeavouring to give the soil a chance of being permanently productive, and who sow wheat at any rate not more than every other year. There are, too, growers of vines, of potatoes, and hay,—all of whom add their quota to the total of cultivated acres, and deduct materially from the favourable side of the above figures. The ordinary cockatoo knows nothing of the word fallow, and attempts to produce nothing but wheat. Year after year he puts in his seed upon the same acreage, and year after year he takes off his crop. He is the owner of a section of land which may be something between one hundred and two hundred acres,—which is his own, though he has not probably as yet paid for it the entire price. He does his work without any attempt to collect manure, or to give back to the land anything in return for that which he takes from it. He even burns the stubble from his field, finding it to be easier to do so than to collect it, that it may rot, and then be ploughed in. He ploughs his land, sows it, and then takes off his crop by a machine called a stripper, which as it passes over the land drags the corn out of the ear, leaving all the straw on the ground;—so that the corn is, as it were, threshed as it is taken off the ground. His labour, therefore, is very small. This last manipulation of the grain,—which would be impossible in England, where the climate demands that the grain should become dry before it can be taken from the ear,—is made practicable in South Australia by the great heat prevailing when the wheat is cut. The effect of all this is deleterious both to the man and to the land. The man has but one farming occupation,—that of growing wheat. He ploughs, and reaps, and sells; and ploughs, and reaps, and sells again. He employs his energies on the one occupation, with no diversification of interest, and with nothing to arouse his intelligence. Consequently the South Australian cockatoo is not a pushing or a lively man,—though it should be acknowledged on his behalf that he is orderly, industrious, and self-supporting. But the effect on the land is worse than that on the man,—for the land clearly deteriorates from day to day. No practical farmer will require figures to make him believe that it is so;—but the figures show it. The yield of wheat in South Australia has always been poor, but it has greatly fallen off. In six years, from 1860-61 to 1865-66, it averaged about twelve bushels an acre, and in the six subsequent years it averaged only nine bushels an acre.
The farmer usually owns the land. The system of tenant-farming is by no means unknown in the colony, but it is not popular either with tenant or landlord. The landlord obtains none of those side-wind advantages from his position as owner,—advantages over and above the rent,—which are so valued in the possession and are so dear to the imagination among ourselves. There is neither political power nor political prestige attached to such ownership. It has no peculiar grace of its own as it has with us. The privileges of a squirearchy are quite unknown in the colonies, or, if they exist at all, belong to great graziers and squatters,—or to men who hold large tracts of land in their own hands, and not to those who let their acres. There are game laws,—for the protection of birds in the close season,—but there are no game laws on behalf of the landowner. There is nothing picturesque attaching to the receipt of rural rents, no audit dinners, no dependency grateful alike to the landlord and to the tenant, no feeling that broad acres confer a wide respect. What percentage can a man get for his money if he let land to farmers, and what security will he have for his income? Those are the considerations, and those only, which bear upon the question. As well as I could learn details on the subject,—as to which no accurate information can be obtained because the arrangement is not sufficiently general to produce it,—a landlord may let cleared and enclosed land, worth for sale in the market about £6 an acre, for 10s. an acre;—and he may thus obtain, if he get his rent, something more than nine per cent. for his money. This would do very well as a speculation, if he were sure or nearly sure to get it, as are our landlords at home. But when bad years come the tenants do not pay. It is regarded almost as a matter of course that the payment of agricultural rents is to depend on the season. If the land refuse her increase, why is the loss to fall on the tenant harder than on the owner? The owner, no doubt, has the law on his side; but the tenant understands very well that when the land is barren, the law will be barren also. Unless his rent be remitted in such years, or at least in part remitted, he simply gives up his holding and goes elsewhere,—with his children and his plough, or without his plough if the landlord or other creditor should have seized it. The result is that the landlord is satisfied to remit half the rent in bad years, and the whole rent in very bad years. The further and final result is that the system of letting land to tenant farmers is unpalatable and unprofitable,—and therefore unusual.
The farmer therefore owns the land. He has bought it probably on credit, beginning simply with savings made from two or three years of labour, and owing the price, or the greater part of it, to the government. I will presently say a word as to the system of deferred payments for land which prevails. His homestead is too frequently bare and ugly, without garden or orchard or anything like an English farmyard around it; but it is substantial, and it is his own. The price of the land has probably been something between 20s. and 40s. an acre,—and he calculates that by growing wheat under the existing agricultural circumstances around him, he can live, and bring up his family, and free himself from his debt within ten years. If he be steady and industrious he can do so,—and he does do so. He does not confine his industry to his own farm; but in shearing-time he shears for some large squatter, or he keeps a team of bullocks and brings down wool to the railway station or to the city, or perhaps he takes a month’s work at some gold-digging,—for even in South Australia there are gold-fields, though they be not prominent among the resources of the colony. In this way he lives and is independent;—and who will dare to find fault with a man who does live, and becomes independent, and makes a property exclusively by his own industry? His life is not picturesque, but he cares nothing for that. His children go to the public school,—at which he pays perhaps 2s. a week for three of them,—and they have plenty to eat and drink. His wife has plenty to eat and drink, and has a decent gown, and material comforts around her. He has plenty to eat and drink, and a decent coat if he cares for it. And he is nobody’s servant. Nevertheless he is a very bad farmer, and unless he mend his ways soon the land which he now ploughs will cease to give him the plenty which he desires. It may not improbably come to pass that a considerable portion of the land occupied by farmers for the purpose of growing wheat, will, under the present system, cease altogether to give sufficient increase on the seed to pay even for the labour of ploughing and reaping. In that case it will go back to pastoral purposes and the farmer will remove elsewhere,—as has already happened in certain districts of the colony. But, though the area is immense, the area which will produce wheat is limited; and thus the well-being of South Australia may be much affected, unless a less wasteful use be made of the land.
The laws under which land has been sold in South Australia have been altered frequently,—as has been the case in all the colonies. The free-selecter, of whom I have been speaking, probably bought his land from the Crown at some price varying from 20s. to 40s. an acre, and was allowed four years,—or latterly five years,—to pay the sum, being charged interest at the rate of five per cent. Before entering upon his land he had only to pay one year’s interest in advance. He has thus been enabled to buy his land with money produced by the crops he has grown. In other words, he has paid simply a rent for a term of years, and at the end of that term the land has become his own. And this system, though never as far as I am aware clearly expressed in words, seems to have been the ruling policy as to the alienation of agricultural land in all the Australian colonies. If the new settler will come and live upon the land, will till it and fence it, and pay for its use, during a sufficient time to prove that he is in earnest as to the use of it, the land shall be his. The idea of drawing from the land the funds required for government, so that taxation should be unnecessary, which was once dear to the minds of many colonists, has gradually faded away. Great as has been the possession of the land, it has not been a source of wealth available for any such purpose. If only it could be used to attract serviceable immigrants, if only it could be equitably distributed among men who would really use it,—not take it for the purpose of bargaining and gambling with it,—if only it could be converted into homes for people who would accept such homes and thus become a nation, the land would then have done all that it should be expected to do. This seems to have been the real gist of Mr. Wakefield’s scheme, and to this theory all the land ministers of the various colonies have been tending; though, as it seems, their progress thitherwards has for the most part been an unconscious progress. But in this attempt to bestow the land there has still been the necessity of exacting Mr. Wakefield’s “sufficient price.” The land, if absolutely given, would be worthless. If it were to be had for nothing, it would be worth nothing. There must be a price upon it such as shall in some degree fix its value, and induce settlers to use with some economy and discretion that which can only be obtained for a stipulated sum of money. But the fund so raised has never been a source of wealth to a colony, and the colonies now cease to look for wealth in that direction. If the money raised will suffice to pay for surveys, to make roads, in any way to prepare the land for those who are to come and take it, all will be done that should be expected. “For a term of years you shall pay the colony such a rental as will enable the colony to make its land serviceable to you;—and then it shall be yours.” Such, in fact, are the terms offered to free-selecters.
When I was in South Australia a new land bill was under the consideration of parliament,—as, indeed, I found new land bills either just in operation or under consideration wherever I went in the colonies. The matter has been one which has required many changes, and as to which no two colonies have been able to agree. As I think it probable that the bill proposed to the South Australian parliament will become law, I will endeavour to explain that instead of referring in detail to the law existing at this moment;—premising that here, in this chapter, it is my purpose to refer to the proposed measure only as far as it relates to the sale of lands to intending farmers, or free-selecters.