ABOUT AUSTRALIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9043, 30 January 1908, Page 3

ABOUT AUSTRALIA.

By W.B

The farmers in this part of the world do not appear to grow any •crops, except a little fruit, and do not appear to have any stock except •a few co ws and horses. The lot of them seem to put in most of their time trapping the nimble rabbit and freezing him in a small freezing works they own. Dairying was started here some years ago, but the cows starved on bluegum leaves and pulverised sandstone. On the limestone formation they keep plenty of sheep. On my way back to Mount Victoria I biked a few miles along the road towards Lithgow, in fact saw the smoke, but as I wanted to see the zig-zag I returned to Mt. Victoria. The zig-zag, supposed to be the greatest engineering feat in the world, is close to Lithgow, the future Birmingham of Australia. There is nothing remarkable about this line. Suffice to say that they run down hill anertain distance, and then shunt the train back .0.1 to another line, and when they have run backwards for a certain distance they go forward again, and so on until the lower level is reached. Lithgow is in a steep gully, and has abundant supplies of coal, iron and lime It also has a magnificent water supply. I might mention that 22,000 trains went over the zig-zag last year, at a loss of 35s per train. Therefore, the Railways Department have decided to do away with the zig-zag and tunnel and make a new line altogether. Last year the amount of revenue taken at Eskbank station (North Lithgow) was £360,000, an increase of £51,000 for twelve months. This looks as though the New South Wales ironworks were going to be a success. The coal formation is said to continue from Lithgow to Newcastle, a distance of over 100 miles in a straight line. After leaving Lithgow I steered towards ' Bathurst, a fairly compact little town of 7,000 inhabitants. Bathurst is a farming district, and a large quan- ' tity of fruit is grown there. About two miles iroin the town is the State Experimental Farm. The director is aMr Peacock. an<| he appears to be the right man in the right place. There happened to be, a meeting of farmers at the farm that afternoon, and the director explained everything that had been done during the_ past year to them. On this farm it has been proved conclusively that graded, •or selected, wheat gives an average .yield of six bushels per acre more ' than ungraded wheat docs. Also, it has been proved that by using graded wheat thin seeding about from 25 to SOlbs of wheat per acre—and careful cultivation of the soil .a farmer will get from 35 to 40 bushels per acre, instead of Bor 10. By using manures for wheat the grain matures earlier than "that without manure. The piincipal wheats , which took my fancy were "Bunyip," a wheat that will stand the frost, but a great cropper with very large grains; "John Brown" wheat, "Come Back,' and "Federation" wheat. All these wheats yielded from 37A to 40 bushels per acre, and the manure used was one hundred - weight of superphosphates per acre. This farm has a fine orchard of 50 acres, and all the trees are pruned so as to resein ble an inverted umbrella. Amongst the apples on this far *i Cleopatras "and Scarlet Pippins .appeared to be doing exceedingly well. ' Jf an apple tree does not bear a crop of fruit and make eighteen inches of wood in twelve months- it is manured. From Bathurst I proceeded to Blayney, a small township which has a copper smelting plant, and also a copper mine. Much of the copper ore from neighbouring shafts is taken to Blayney to be treated and smelted. I had to wait five or six hours foi\a train to Molong, and therefore had~ time to look through .the new smelting works. Not being a mining expert I cannot describe the machinery, which is the most up-to-date. From Blayney I went to Orange, and had to wait for two hours before our train left Orange for Molong; therefore, I had a look round tho town —a place as j compact and about the size of Pahiatua. Orange is the Taranaki of New South Wale:?. Here the climate is wet, and consequently sheep get the fluke and rot, and the farmers make a living out of lruit and butter. The country from here is all granite and basalt and scoria with soil as rich as any in Taranaki and closely resembles our garden of of New Zealand. The old extinct craters are 'filled up, and the hills, which at one time shook Australia, are silent, and much resemble these around Pa Karaka in the Bay of Islands. The lumps of basalt and scoria, like those in the Bay of Islands, or around Whangarei, are everywhere apparent. Further up the line towards Molong the country again changes to granite. Molong is a small town about as large as our Martinborough. From Molong I booked my bag and took to my bike for Yeoval, a small town aLout halfway between Parkes on the Lachlan river line, and Wellington orf the Bourke line. The road was good with a finger-post at every cross-road. It was ideal country to bike over;where the road was not metalled it was •three-, chains wide, and gave one plenty of room, and for the greater part was as smooth as our town footpaths. There was not much to see passing through except gums, both alive and dtad, a few stunted crops, swarms of crows, an odd iguana and countless millions of grasshoppers. Of the latter I passed through one swarm abo-.t three miles wide; they were falling like snow, being white underneath the wings, and a kind of greeny yellow on the back; there was one to about every patch of soil two '■'. inches square, and every fifteen or twenty feet apart there was a heap of them like a swarm of bees. They were constantly on the travel, and were moving East. All the country on the Parkes line is pastoral, agricultural and mineral land. Copper is the principal metal obtained, being found in all the granite formations. There are hundreds of miners all along the Parkes-Lachlan line. It was at Yeoval that 1 descended a shaft, and saw the copper ore being extracted from the ground. Here there are miles of granite formation, which at a depth of about fifty feet produces stone yielding from 20 to 50 percent, of copper; but it does not pay to work at the present prices of metals. How useless for us to prospect for metals in the Tararua and - Euahine ranges.