'The Australian harvesting system is the cheapest in the world, and is peculiar to the country. There is a dryness about the crops of the northern plains, on which the bulk of the wheat in South Australia and Victoria is grown, and this enables the "stripper" to be used. The stripper is an Australian invention. It is described by its name. It squeezes the corn out, and leaves the stalk standing. The corn is threshed upon the straw, and the straw is afterwards burnt off or is ploughed in.'
Mr. Dow is an enthusiastic irrigationist, and it is pleasant to hear him converse about what is to be the future of farming in Victoria, when water has been systematically impounded, in order to flood the land in due season. Our farmers, it is to be noted, have hitherto sought the plains, where the timber was not more than was required for firewood, and where they could sow and reap at once. But the value of the forest country is now being appreciated. There is heavy clearing to be done, no doubt; but then the land is rich, and gives astonishing root crops, and fattens many sheep to the acre. And when a railway is run into the forest it is found that the timber pays for itself, and for the land also, and is as good a crop as the selector is ever likely to take off the soil.
The following are the present conditions under which land can be selected in Victoria: The best unsold portions of the public estate, amounting in the aggregate to 8,712,000 acres, are divided into 'grazing areas,' not exceeding 1000 acres in size, each of which is available for the occupation of one individual, who is entitled to select, within the limits of his block, an extent not exceeding 320 acres, for purchase in fee simple at £1 per acre, payment of which may extend over twenty years, without interest. The selected portion is termed an 'agricultural allotment,' and of it the selector is bound to cultivate one acre in every ten acres, and make other improvements amounting to a total value of at least £1 per acre. The unselected portion of the original area is intended for pastoral purposes, and for this the occupier obtains a lease, at a rental of from 2d. to 4d. per acre, for a period of fourteen years, after which it reverts to the Crown, an allowance up to 10s. per acre being made the lessee for any improvements he may have effected calculated to improve the stock-carrying capabilities of the land. In New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia, and Western Australia, the facilities are greater than in Victoria. But it is better to state the minimum than the maximum advantage. All classes go on the lands with success, because 'high farming' or 'scientific culture' is not attempted in the bush—only in exceptional instances near the towns. A county prize for the best-kept farm was recently awarded to a freeholder whose culture and whose crops were highly commended by the judges. 'You were trained in a good school, evidently,' said one of the judges to the prize-taker. 'Not at all, sir,' was the reply; 'until I took up this land I was serving all my life behind a linen-draper's counter.' A handsome endowment has, however, just been made for the establishment of Agricultural Colleges in Australia.
Without a wife the settler's is but a lonely lot. There are bachelors, of course. Our picture represents a forlorn individual returning to his home. He will have a warmer welcome no doubt some day from wife and weans than that which he receives from the cockatoo which he has taught and tamed.
The settler has few enemies. The only two worth naming are drought and fire. The systematic storage of water throughout the country is in part mitigating the one, and already in Victoria no selector is more than three miles from permanent water for his stock. And as irrigation is coming apace, the fire risk, such as it is, will be diminished. Even now it is not serious. Not one farmer will be burned out, but at the same time a watch is required to see that no flame gets the upper hand. When a man burns off stubble he must give notice to his neighbours.
A Bush Welcome.
Some of the most dramatic incidents of bush life occur when an alarm of fire has been given, and the entire neighbourhood turns out to beat down the conflagration with bushes. The males form a line and work with all their energy to stamp out the flames, and the women and children help by supplying the toilers with refreshments and with a fresh stock of boughs and bushes.
'Black Thursday' (February 5, 1851), the memorable day of the colonies, would be impossible now. On that dread occasion Southern Australia was all ablaze, there was a sad loss of life, and the lurid atmosphere was noticeable as far away as New Zealand. Bishop Selwyn (who was afterwards translated to Lichfield) told the writer that he was in his yacht off the New Zealand coast at the time, and he was struck by the appearance of a fiery glow in the sky towards the island continent.