THE NORTHERN TERRITORY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 245, 6 March 1913, Page 7

THE NORTHERN TERRITORY

. AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. The agricultural experiments which are being conducted by the CommonWealth government in the Northern Territory seem to. <be demonstrating chiefly that settlement in that part of the island continent cannot be hurried. The officials of the Department of Agriculture are not yet in a position to tell farmers what to,grow in Northern Australia and when to plant the seeds. They have still to find a wheat that will ripen-"before the opening of the rainy season, which extends from October to March. ''Encouraging results have been obtained frpm sowings. of seed.wheat imported from India," says the the .Sydney Morning Herald, "and probable quicker and definite results will be obtained by further experimenting with Indian wheat than with Australian. Tobacco will grow well in the Territory—there is an a.bundanee of suitable land—but there a {rail the Department of Agriculture will have to adapt varieties to suit the climate. And right through the piece, from fruit trees to vegetables, from cereals to cotton, the Director of Agriculture and his officers will find their work cut out testing twenty varieties, where in the South they would be experimenting with one, and at least a couple of years must pass before they can safelv advise new settlers which plants to plant with any reasonable assurance of a harvest." The settler who attempts to make his own investigations without the support of plenty of capital will quickly he in financial difficulties.