Empty Acres Equal to 20 Englands.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 December 1922, Page 4

Empty Acres Equal to 20 Englands.

(By Sir AYilliam IteachjThoinas)Australia is as full of contradictions and surprises as, according to the proverb, Africa is full of, novelties. Am never know what to expect. In my latest journey into the more inland and drier districts of New South Wales, near the Victorian boun ilary, 1 was entertained at a sheep station 80 miles from the railway terminus at which 1 arrived, and 00 Iron, the departure station. Some of the land we crossed sug-

gested pure desert. Some paddock; were eaten by caterpillars, some swept bare by wind", though for tlie didst part siieep flourished, in spite of an exceptionally acute drought, on grass, blue bush, and other fodder. AA'e saw in great perfection that essentially desert phenomenon tlie mirage. I could have sworn that the cm was making directly lor a great lake, buL the lake retreated like a rainbow as we went forward. Our road was a wheel track, and we bad many gates to open, but iteverthe less maintained a. speed ol 30 miles an hour, and long before I oxpeoted we reached the desired homestead. Tlie seeming desert had an oasis indeed. A great lagoon half encircled the log house and many out-buildings. The garden was rich with many flowers and tho best vegetables 1 ever saw. Citrus orchards, still carrying large crops of orange, mandatin', and lemon, lent a tropical effect. But the master surprise was to find that the river, the Alurrumbidgee, and its creeks were in flood, fertilising thousands of acres. The flood coincided with a long continuous period o( drought. It is the sort of combination possible only in Australia. This station proved an instructive example of the coming of the new Australia. Already nearly 2,000 acres had been ploughed and sown with wheat and barley. Rians were advanced for splitting it up tor closei. settlement.. Us isolation was to lie ended by an extended railway, and yet more significant of tlie change of mental attitude in .Australia, the neighbour States of A'ictoria and New South Wales were co-operating closely in this railway development. It is quite certain that where a single homestead now is, where the only cottages, as we should say, are barrack-likc lines c f single rooms for teams of shearers, ihere or thereabouts villages or townships are about to arise. i

I wrote iii another article of the sin prise of some Victorians themselves at the juxtaposition of lands differing in value by as much as 12)00 an acre. The very'best picture of this sort that 1 saw myself was in the neighbourhood of Griffith, one of the newly irrigated districts of New .South Wales, where there is a ridge formed of gigantic lumps of pudding-stone. Our car, whiil: aft::’ the fashion of cars in Australia, took to cross-coun-try work like a duck to water, carried us half-way up the slope ; and a very brief climb disclosed a view that should stir tin; imagination of Australians as well as “Pommies,” or now migrants. On one side is a dost !y settled plain such as i have earlier d"scribed, a plain cut in. into orchard.-, of orange, lemon, ninmlanns, pearlies and apricots, into vineyards,' into compact dairy farms. On the oilier is aboriginal Australia, a plain of grasses and sparse scrub alternating with heavier and closer timber. A square mile on this side is scarcely worth an acre on the other, though the soil and climate are of equal merit. The poor laud is thirsting to become rich land ; and the marvel is that British youth is not thirsting to become rich by bestowing richness ou it. The appreciation of value must come. The one question soon: Land clearing in many parts of Can- , ada that 1 visited costs £IOO an acre. It may cost more. Millions of acres here—equivalent, sav, to twenty Englands—are cither free from trees or quite easily cleared. One of the most curious experiences is to watch th(> clearing of what is called mlillee land. The first step is to put a roller over the light scrub. The second, at a later date, to sot fire to the flattened growth, which burns so well that in sonic cases the fire will follow the roots im for many yards. In most cases laud may he made immediately available for stock by “ring-barking” the trees. Tt must he iindersto m| that an immigrant who Iris tii earn his livelihood 1 cannot squat on such land and hope to . earn his living immediately. lie would have no house, no present in- I conic. But this is the land out of 1 which the pioneers, ihe first squatters, made their fortunes, and anyone Who gets it, and clears it knows that the value must increase year by year —both its yearly production and its capital price. All worke in town nr country are working ou the edge of a rich hinterland that harbours infinite possibili- 1 ties. I never saw land so rich, so cheap, so en*ily developed. ; Over nearly the whole of tho wide view of which I write tho land is cap- 1 able of almost immediate irrigation ; . and there is no single reason why one side of the ridge, which is cut by a

canal, should bo less productive than the other, why dairy cows should not chew tlie cud where tho wallabies skip. ■ .

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