My tour consisted of an eighty-mile drive through one vast wheat field. As far as the eye could reach in every direction the fields were filled with ripening or ripened wheat. Fields! I said. And what fields! Several of them extended for over half a mile in one direction alone. Farming here is farming. Land is measured by miles rather than by acres. The whole process of reaping is modern. The “complete harvester” is in general use over these immense fields. It is a wonderful piece of machinery, completely superseding the old methods of reaping, binding, stacking, etc. The “harvester” does everything. It cuts the wheat, winnows it, fills up one bag with chaff and another with wheat, while the driver moves across the vast space. Automatically, the bags filled with grain are deposited at certain intervals upon the field. When the “harvester” has been over the crop there is nothing more to be done; the wheat is ready for exportation. The perfect climate permits this complete process to be undertaken at a stroke. The wheat is cut when quite ripe and quite dry. It never lies in the fields to be sodden and spoiled by capricious rain, as is often the case in England.
At this harvest season in the Mallee we tasted all the charms of a perfect Australian summer climate. The eucalyptus was putting forth its new, delicate tips of gold and brown—a perfect blend of bush colour. The sky was a deep blue, unrelieved by a fleck of cloud. The air, dry and hot, encompassed us like the breath of a generous oven in which all manner of savoury things were yielding up their odours. This blend of bush perfumes, liberated by the heat of the sun, has a character all its own. The charm is completed by the extreme clearness of the atmosphere, which creates many a sweet illusion of the landscape. On these broad spaces the mirage is frequently seen. At least half a dozen times we were tricked into believing that ahead of us lay a glorious stretch of water, when all that awaited us was a particularly dry part of the plain.
Despite the partition of the country amongst farmers, there is an air of solitude in the Mallee that is at times depressing. During our eighty miles run we encountered upon the highway only four living beings, while on the morrow, we encountered not a single human being. Life is confined to the farms-teads, which are scattered. Neighbours are separated by several miles from each other. But these farm-houses were the surprise of our journey. Not one of them is twenty-five years old, yet we found in each the telephone installed. One farmer, at whose generous table we lunched, has his own plant of air gas, and his house is brilliantly illuminated at night. In every house we visited we found a valuable piano: in one case it was a German instrument worth over £100. These are the Mallee farmers who in twenty years or less have compelled this wilderness to blossom as the rose, and who, as the result, have furnished their houses in modern fashion, and with many luxuries. I could not help contrasting many of the farms I know well “at home” with these abodes of comparative luxury in the once desert of Australia.
In some cases the primitive houses and the modern abodes stand side by side. The former, built of rude pine blocks and covered with corrugated iron, represent the struggle and the simplicity of the pioneer days: the latter represent success and comfort. Most of these farmers are deeply religious men. They have not allowed their motor-cars to cheat them out of the old-fashioned Sunday. The churches are crowded on Sundays, and it is quite a common sight to behold the chapel yard filled with motors, buggies, cycles, and other means of locomotion. Worshippers come for twenty miles to their central churches. And these Mallee men have not allowed their prosperity to kill their native generous sentiments. They are most generous towards their churches. One small congregation raised £80 last year for foreign mission work. A modification of the tithe system is in operation amongst these good people. They give in “kind” as well as in money. So many bags per hundred of wheat and oats are set aside for sale on behalf of Christian work. It is a primitive but very effective method of giving.
There is another side to the picture. Away on the back blocks are men and women who are more heathen than any persons in Fiji or Samoa. A clergyman in the Mallee told me that he had visited people in distant places of the Mallee who had not even seen a church for more than eighteen years. These families grow up in complete ignorance of religion. One child of twelve years of age was brought in to the “town” to become a mother: later her sister, a child of fourteen, followed her for the same purpose. My friend discovered that these children, brought up amongst the animals, scarcely knew the name of God. Their moral sense was unawakened. There are therefore drawbacks to a garden which has sprung out of the desert.
CHAPTER XXI
THE ANNUAL SHOWS
Once a year, at least, each Australian State gives demonstrable evidence, in the most attractive manner, of its natural wealth. Every State has its annual Agricultural “Show” to which all loyal people pay homage, for a display of the stock and the produce of a country is more than a pastime, it is a revelation of power and possibilities. Here is an immense tract of country, covering thousands of square miles. Less than a century ago it was a wild “bush” covered with the gum tree and every variety of undergrowth. Less than fifty years ago only a mere fraction of the space was “cleared” for agricultural purposes. Slowly the work of preparing the soil has advanced. So far as the great outside world is concerned the cultivation of the country has proceeded in silence. No person without special knowledge of the march of events could have dreamed that progress has been so marked as the issue has revealed it to be. Only when the total results are massed together in a great “Show” is it possible to understand how marvellous has been the rate of progress. Canada has long called, with alluring voice, to the Old Country to come and aid its progress and share its wealth. Australia has now called to the old world. These vast spaces must be filled, not with fools in search of an easy berth, but with strong, earnest men and women who will co-operate with Nature in fructifying the earth.
It was that I might behold with my own eyes what the Commonwealth had already done in conquering the soil, and that I might also help to make the old Mother at home open her eyes to the facts, that I attended five of Australia’s “Shows.”
They were impressive, great, revealing. From every part of the States machinery and produce had been sent. It was a veritable panorama of a young country’s life and effort. Wheels, still and in motion—the work of man. Life, still and in motion—the work of God. It was quite a serious show. There were few amusements in it. People who attended it in thousands went to pay homage to the manhood of the country. It was the life of a young nation, under this attractive guise, that received the universal salutation. All this work was Australia’s own. The vast mass of machinery and implements were fabricated in Australia’s workshops. True the Old Country had a share in the exhibits, but not a great share. There were imports, but not many. America, too, always ready to capture Poles, or equators, or anything else, was represented amongst the machines. But the significant thing was that the greater part of the machinery and implements were made by Australians. The child has grown up, and got to work, and the old Mother hardly realises what he is doing so far away.