THINGS AUSTRALIAN

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2639, 9 December 1915, Page 7

THINGS AUSTRALIAN

ARCTIC CONDITIONS IN VICTORIA. Speaking to a Dominion reporter yesterday, Jlr. J. B. ; Brinßden, • general manager in New Zealand for the Dunlop . Rubber Company, wlio returned from a visit to Australia on Monday, ■ states that on-'"the-whole the season in Australia is a dry, but a' good one. It has been a very good one in New South AVales, and in parts there had been so much grass and the herds and flocks had been so denuded by the drought thai: it just had to die down. ,\- It -became burnt up in tho hot weather that has prevailed over there for the last month ; and ■ innumora-ble grass and bush iires resulted. Adelaide has had a bad time'for three years past on account of the absence of rains, yet this year tho wheat crop is good; not what people in New Zealand would call good, but good that country, and what there is of it is the best quality of milling wheat in the world. The gardens of Adelaide wore droopy through the effects'of the long drought, but in Melbourne they were beautiful. AVhen Mr. Brinsden left Adelaide on November '23 the temperature was about 84 degrees in the shade. AVliou he awoke at 6 o'clook tho next morniug at Beauford there lvas nothing- to be seen as far as the evo could reach but snow; completely covering plain and mountain. The Victorian climate is fairly changeable, but to see the whole couittrysido whito with' snow as late ajs tho end of November was. a remarkable spectacle. It had been over 90 dogrces' in the shade the day before in Mel"°urne> but when they arrived in town the thermometer had dropped to 40.7, fires were going in overy house, and everyone was wearing his or her warmest coat. In the -western district of Victoria, Mr. Brinsden said that it had long ago been discovered that a great mistake had been made in felling all tho bush, m ordor that five blades of grass may grow where one grew before.' that policy was only right up to a point. AVhat had bceu bitterly impressed on the squatters and small fanners was that with tho ontir© disappearance of the bush the birds disappeared, and with the disappearance of the birds the insect pests became a menace to the man 011 the land. For the past two or three years they had been planting belts of trees all over the country in order to coax tho birds back again, and also to give shelter to the sheep from tho cold winds that swept across the plains, often after shearing time, causing great mortality among the flocks. , Br^ nsden found that the staff of 1400 employed by the Dunlop Rubber Company in Melbourne were all kept busily employed. As far as their supplies of material were concerned, they had not been greatly interfered with 1 t a as a consequence they had been able to keep the market well supplied without raising tho prices of any of their lines.