DROUGHT IN AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 169, 23 December 1914, Page 7

DROUGHT IN AUSTRALIA.

CONDITIONS VERY BAD. - HOPES FOR NEXT SEASON. Bumper harvests, abundance of grass for Hocks and herds, and good times for everyone are predicted for next seasoa ky Mr. Sidney Kidman, the Australian cattle king. Mr. Kidman, interviewed in Sydney, -aid he fully expected that next season would be a very good one, and that two or three good seasons would follow. That was the inevitable experience after a very bad year. He did not think people in Sydney realised how very bad conditions had been, and still were in many parts. Jn South Australia there never hud been a worse time. He had a great admiration for the grit of the South Australian farmers, who were, he believed, the best in the world. If people who lived in more favorable districts of Australia were/to see the present condition of some of the wheat farms in South Australia they would wonder how any man had the heart to battle along in those parts. In good seasons the country, .of course, wore a very different aspect from what it did to-day. One of the lessons of the drought was the necessity of saving instead of destroying straw. Thousands of horses could have been kept alive if the farmers had only straw stacks. The price of cattle would, Mr. Kidman opined, go up a good deal yet. He did not care to prophesy what they would reach, because some people might think he was drawing the long bow; but one had only to go out back and see how things were, and if lie did go he could come to no other conclusion than that there would be a great -scarcity till a real break-up of the drought occurred in the interior. He had recently made a journey of about 4000 miles in a motor car through the New England district into Queensland as far as Burkctown, returning through Camooweal, Urandangle, and Birdsville, in the western corner of Queensland, and thence by way of Hergott's Springs to Adelaide. The herbage was good at that time about Birdsville, but it had gone off since. Everywhere else, howerer, the effects of the drought were being experienced in a greater or a lesser degree, though the situation had in some places since been relieved by a little rain. What lie had seen on that trip made it plain to him that cattle had not reached top price yet. The prosperity of Australia depr;:'od mainly upon one thing—rain. No matter i how dry the country got through a drought, there was 110 part of the world where a carpet of green appeared quicker after a downpour that penetrated sufficiently to start the germinating process. He sometimes thought that droughts were part of nature's scheme to give the land a rest; but he did not want to put his ideas on this subject against those of scientists, whatever they were. The fact was that when rain came plant life, invigorated by this rest, made extraordinary growth, and it was 110 uncommon experience to find grass knee-deep where a little while before not a vestige of green could have been seen.