AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3355, 6 December 1919, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT.

KEEPING SHEEP ALIVE. GRAZIERS LAST PENNY. An Australian press correspondent, who recently toured the droughtstricken regions of New South Wales, states that people in Sydney lightly talk of a dramatic breaking of the drought, and picture a day's downpour, after which the drought can consider itself beaten and broken. But th e farmer pictures it as: a week or a fortnight of heavy rains, followed by other good rains at close intervals. On these black soil plains, where Vie ground is fissured all over by wide craks—some so wide and deep that a horse's leg will go right down into a fissure—an inch of rain is simply swallowed up as if it had -been poured through a sieve. Until the black soil is isoaked again ana again the drought cannot b {! said to be over. Isolated rains do good by bringing up a thin growth of herbage, but unles s these rains are soon followed by others that herbage is eaten down or dies urTSer tho heat. STOCKOWNERS' DILEMMA.

Two alteriiiitivcs have been before the grazier during this long-continued drought. A year ago, after a succession of poor seasons, steadily growing worse, when the drought settled down to its worst he could either try to save his sheep or let them die. There were graziers who gambled on the drought 'being a long one, and decided to spend not a penny on their sheep. fhey kept them alive a s long as natural herbage lasted, then they let them die. Their theory was that the money saved would enable thein" to purchase sheep When the drought did break. They took the long shot that the drought would be a long drought—and tkety were right.

The majority of the graziers, however, decided to save their sheep as long as they had a penny left to !ceep them alive. They have done so—till this day, but at a terrible cost. lb-re arc some actual examples:—A man had 3000 sheep. He hand-fed them for J2 months. Now, despite all his e'Tnrts, h e ha s only 800 alive. He spent "3000 in lucerne, and has nothing to show for it except his 800 sheep, each of which has" cost him £4. Sheep will be dear when the drought does break. Many a grazier, after feding his sto:k till he has spent his last penny, openly regrets that he did, not lose the whole of his stodk at the beginning of the drought, COUNTRY SET BACK SIX YEARS, A man with 15,000 acres had on them 8000 sheep. He decided to save his sheep. He has saved them. They are in moderately good condition, but the cost has been huge. He '.-icked some of them to the Riverina and the Blue Mountains; he rented paddocks for their agistment at far scattered places. The remaining sheep he fed with edible scrub and wheat, and rll thig expenditure—including wages to droversI—totalled 1 —totalled £7ODO. And now. with no prospects of the drougl t breaking, after having sauk that big sum of money, he does not know whether to go on sinking more thousands or whether to let the sheep that have cost him so much perish. That is the dilemma which is fficing practically every stockowner. Are his sheep worth saving .xt Hi-3 added and unaccountable cost? I'raet'cally every sheep that has been preserved from the drought has cost its vner an extra £l. That £1 has been sunk to keep that sheep alive, and when—-

or if —the drought breaks the stockowner must get that £1 N-ck bcfoie he standg where he was before the drought.

Yet so wonderful arc the capabilities of this district of sparse rainfall, that when the drought breaks the fine condition of the sheep will astonish the city dweller. But the heavy losses r.nd the cost of saving the survivors cannot be made up by even the highest prices. The drought already has set the country back to where it was six years ago.