FROM THE MIDDLE OF AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 198, 19 February 1914, Page 8

FROM THE MIDDLE OF AUSTRALIA.

A HARDEN OF KD].;x. (■'. If. Wilkinson writes to Idle "Jl letin:—l write this from 'Mount StuWt, iii tlie heart of the continent, .Mount .Stuart is in' latitude 22, so it is north of Rockhampton nnd about level willi Muckay. Incidently, it is in tin; .Northern Territory, and' is alongside the overland telegraph line and close, to the track that the railway will take when it bisects Australia 'from fort Augusta in the north to Port Darwin in the north, unless some fools or scoundrels contrive to get the great work diverted. It is a pleasant place, and the only reason why people don't swarm to it is the lack of means of transit. When you come to think over the matter, (lie probable reason why .Scotsmen didn't rush the Garden

of Men in all the glory of their kilts and all the bright youth of Onesis was was the absence of a railway. Otherwise they would have hurried there, and turned an honest bawbee by selling the serpent to a menagerie. As I already said, I write this from Mount Stuart, in the centre of Australia, up on the great, coo], pleasant iniudle tableland, which so few Australians take the trouble to learn anything about. What some immemorial ass called /'the great central desert" is all a.round. 'When that noted traveller and cartographer Mandeiville, didn't know anything about a country he wrote on his map, "This lande is alie fulle of d&viloes," and passed on. Or else he 9tatcd that it was a land where ipoople wore their faces on the front of their stomachs and passed on. It was by reason of that passing-on habit that Australia acquired its great central desert. As 1 hinted, already, I am at Mount Stuart, in the middle of Australia. Of course, the man who called it the central desert didn't know. He looked at the map, saw few names marked in this great territory, guessed ,a desert, and guessed wrong. Instead

of' barreness, the surroundings are picturesque. The Macdoiineal flanges encompass us—wild in parts, hut fine grazing land mostly. The township is practically the huh of the continent. Approximately we are KMM) miles from Adelaide, and boast two stores an hotel, a market garden, a police station nnd a fortnightly mail service from the head of the railway line al Oodnadntta, which is 350 miles away The mails are brought to us 220 miles by coach and I'M) miles on pack camels. High up above sea level, we have a cool climate. May, June, and July are the Boldest months; then black and white frosts are frequent and water exposed over night is frozen in the morning. The summer is sometimes pretty warm, but the heat is dry and not depressing, like that of the coast. During last summer we had no weather so hot as that of Adelaide. There is no fever of any sort. We have 110 doctor; and, speaking from my own experience, extending over many years, we rarely need one. Ours is one of lite healthiest homes in Australia. The average rainfall is about 11 inches. Our water supply is obtained from soakage wells, of which there are .six in the township. The deepest is 42" feet. The soil is prolilic. In our own garden we liave naval orange treeß, slipstone peach figs, lemons, date palms and grape vines, all in bearing. The oranges arc especially line. The figs bear exceedingly well; we were eating fruit from these trees from the middle of December to the middle of April. The date palm last season had five big bunches. The grapes ripen in the middle of December. Wle have also growing Cape gooseberries and rhubarb, and have experimented with wheat, maize, lucerne, paspalum, rape and Ilnter River drought-resisting

grass. All grow well. We have pumpkins weighing 11411) and water melons with a tonnage of 4011) to 801k By protecting the plants during the winter months we get tomatoes all the year round. Our main industry is horse and cattle breeding; hut sheep farmers would I think, come alon if the railways did. The main difliculity is want of water; hut the catchments are hetter than they are in the West Darling district of Now South Wales, and the rainfall is just as good. There, hundreds of men have made fortunes out of sheep. Here, when the direct line 7s completed from OOdnadata to Pine Creek, thousands of men will live, in all'ulcucc.