DROUGHT'S TOLL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 538, 23 May 1933, Page 6

DROUGHT'S TOLL

COUNTRY THAT MAKES. OR BREAKS MEN. Sydney, Thursday. When he heard that Mr. John Willdams, flying representative of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, proposed touring the far west of New South Wales, Mr. T. A. Field, one of the largest western lessees, said: "You'U see country that makes and breaks men. And you'll see why." Mr. Williams writes: — Station-owners throughout the west hosii'itably anchftred our aeroplanes on their properties, >and then drove us scores of miles by car. They were anxious that we should see "behind the scenes." The west is a big place. In the Western Lands Division there are 77,000,000 acres of occupied leases, carrying 6,600,000 sheep this year. It is a land of contrasts. The carrying capacity varies from one sheep to three acres to as low as one sheep to 240 acres. The average is onq to 10 acres. It is first-class sheep breeding and wool-growing country.

Droughts are the terror of the west. The annual rainfall averages 10 inclies but rain may not fall for a year. Bourlce and points west have had no useful rain since June last'. 'When it does fall all the 10 inches may come at once. Then the growth of feed is tremendous, waist-deep: We saw what a drought means — sheep dying of thirst and hunger in thousands, trees dying, dead, the earth cracking, deep, wide, and long, dust and heat, and flies, an exhausted land. The drought set in several months ago. The rain Sydney had before Easter missed -westward , of Bourke. Bourke is the principal railhead for trucking sheep east. Sheep from the stations (60 miles out on an average),

move into Bourke along established stock routes. Along these at intervals are tanks — reservoirs scooped out of tho earth — and 'bores, some maintaaned by the Government. In a drought these supplies dry up and feed dies, thus imprisoning the sheep to die on the stations, which in time become waterless and feedless, too. * One must shift his sheep while there is feed and water on the stock routes. But befcre he can do this, he must sell on the spot to eastern buyers, or have sufficient cash tO' pay the rail freight to agistment country. The freight on one sheep from Bourke to Sydney is 4s 6d, or twice as much as what each sheep is wortb. in Bourke to-day. It is human nature that dealers take advantage of the farmers' embarrassment in droughts. They ^ get together, -and the farmer— especially this year- — badly in need oi cash* sells for whatever he_caiyget.