A "RAINLESS WHEAT."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 3 September 1913, Page 4

A "RAINLESS WHEAT."

Mr William Macdonald, D.Sc, of the Union Department of Agriculture, South Africa, contributes a very interesting article to the "Nineteenth Century" on the subject of the "rainless wheat."_ Dry-farming,"Mr Macdonald points out, is no new thing l — principles of dry-farming to-day are merely amplification of those fundamental methods of tillage set forth 182 years ago by the genius of-Jetb.ro. Tull. It was Tull who first enunciated the three great principles of dry-farming, namely, drilling, reduction of seed, and absence of weed. The three principles mentioned have had a severe test in the dry lands of Lichtenburg, in the Western Transvaal, and the results have been wonderful. The most important discovery in connection with dry-farming, Mr Macdonald tells us, is the value of durum (hard) wheat for soils, and in regions of light rainfall. The year of drought need not be feared when the principles of dry-farming are properly earned out. In the conservation of soil moisture 1 liea the -ultimate conquest of drought, which to tin telligent dry-farmer is no more than a passing storm to the skilful mariner at sea.