Wheat Growing in Australia

Part 1

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COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA.

WHEAT GROWING IN AUSTRALIA.

ISSUED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 1915.

By authority: McCARRON, BIRD & CO., PRINTERS, 479 COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE.

Information Concerning AUSTRALIA may be obtained on application to--

IN AMERICA:

THE AUSTRALIAN PAVILION, PANAMA PACIFIC EXHIBITION, SAN FRANCISCO.

NIEL NIELSEN, Esq., Trade and Immigration Commissioner for New South Wales, 419 Market Street, San Francisco.

F. T. A. FRICKE, Esq., Land and Immigration Agent for Victoria, 687 Market Street, San Francisco.

IN LONDON:

The High Commissioner for THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, 72 Victoria Street, Westminster.

IN AUSTRALIA:

The Secretary DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, Collins and Spring Streets, Melbourne.

CONTENTS.

Introduction 5

Australian Wheat Area 12

Factors Governing Wheatgrowing 18

Securing a Wheat Farm 22

Working Plant Required 23

Working the Wheat Farm 26

Cost of Production 34

Share Farming 38

How the Settler is Assisted 43

Social Life in Australia 49

WHEATGROWING IN AUSTRALIA.

With the growing scarcity of foodstuffs that has become a world-wide feature of the last few years, the wheatgrower is one of the most important necessities in civilisation. He has prospered in the past, but the future holds still greater and richer prospects. And in no country in the world are those prospects brighter than in the Commonwealth of Australia. The world's surface is gradually filling up, and most of the older countries have reached sight of the limit of cultivation, so the world's millions have to look to newer lands to provide them with food. The great island continent in the southern seas possesses a vast area of proven wheat land, as yet untouched by the plough. It lies dormant, fertile, and responsive, awaiting the union of labour and land to yield abundance of food.

Australia has many rural industries, but of agriculture wheat is the most important, just as it is the most important of the world's crops. Wheat is the king of cereals--the prime essential of civilised life. Nearly half the inhabitants of the globe are wheat-eaters. And the number is growing, for the Eastern races are becoming consumers of wheat, which is significant of a higher standard of living. For as races rise in the human scale wheat becomes a more important part of their food. This alone shows the increasing importance of the cereal, and the importance of the men who grow it. Indeed, the food value of wheat, its ease of cultivation and preparation for human use, the fact that it will grow and flourish in so many different soils and climates, and can be made into so many and various products, combined with its quick and bountiful return, all go to enhance the value of wheat grain, and the prospects of the man who grows it.

Part 2

Science is teaching how to produce more wheat from the same area, is improving the varieties of wheat and the methods of cultivating it, and teaching how to restore impoverished lands. And there is still an enormous area as yet untouched, while land is being utilised now that twenty years ago was deemed incapable of growing wheat. Who can tell what the future will find?

Australia alone has many millions of acres of wheat land as yet unused for that purpose. One of the youngest of nations, yet one of the oldest parts of the world geologically, it can house and feed millions more than its present population. There is room for the extension and continuation of the magnificent progress that wheatgrowing has already made. The story of wheat cultivation is the story of progress. In Australia, within the last decade, wheatgrowing has advanced rapidly. Railways have been built out into new districts, and freight is cheap. Towns have sprung into existence, and the whole aspect of the countryside in district after district being altered by increasing settlement, where wheatfields have taken the place of sheep paddocks. These towns are solvent and prosperous, and certain of a great future, for there is room for immensely greater settlement. The majority of the wheat farms are larger than necessary, and only a small percentage of the wheat land is cultivated. The urgent necessity is for more men to build homes and farm these lands. There are both private and public lands awaiting settlement.

The profitable nature of wheatgrowing in Australia is shown by the comfortable homesteads and the strong financial position of numerous families in the wheat districts. Many of these successful wheatgrowers, indeed most of them, are men who started with little or no capital in cash, but with plenty of energy and willingness to work. They have built homes for themselves in the "bush," and found prosperity, and there is room for thousands of other men to follow in their footsteps. In a favourable year a wheatfarmer will often receive as much, or more, for his crop than the capital value of his land.

In the early stages of wheatgrowing in Australia mistakes were made and progress was slow. Wheat was grown in the wrong soil and districts, and suitable varieties of the cereal were not available. Cultivation was confined to the moist coastal country, with its annual rainfall of 30 to 40 in., and wheat was not a success. The discovery that the drier districts inland were more suitable for wheatgrowing altered the position very happily. The bulk of the wheat is now grown in districts with a rainfall of 20 to 25 in. and under. This averaged rainfall is considered sufficient for wheatgrowing, and safer than a heavier rainfall. Wheatgrowing has been most profitable in districts with a rainfall below 20 in., and an average of 40 bushels per acre has been harvested from 600 acres. On well-worked fallowed land splendid money-making crops have been gathered, although the growing crop only had 2 or 3 in. of rain.

In Australian wheat districts the quantity of rain is not as important as the time of the year in which it falls. Rain is wanted in the early autumn, so that ploughing can be done, and in the spring, when the wheat is heading and flowering. With rain in April and May, and again in September or October, the Australian wheatgrower is assured of a fine crop. In the wheat districts those are the seasonable times to get rain. The summer is usually dry and warm, and this is one of the main advantages from the wheatgrower's standpoint. This fine dry weather--which is exceptionally healthy for the human being--means the production of a high-class grain, for which there is an unlimited demand in the world's markets. Unless the common rule is broken, and the season is unduly wet, there is no fear of rust, and nothing to interfere with the haymaking. The main crop, which is kept for grain, can be left standing safely in the paddocks until it is thoroughly ripe, when it is taken off with a stripper or harvester and bagged. So the districts that have heavy summer rains are largely unsuitable for wheatgrowing, but those in which the rains fall during the autumn, winter, and spring, and have dry summers, are most suitable.

While the present average is low in the Australian wheatgrowing districts compared with other countries, the cost of production is also remarkably low. Furthermore, methods are improving generally, and a considerable increase in yield can be expected with confidence. The very richness of the soil and the kindliness of the climate has tempted growers to adopt speculative methods of growing wheat. The main idea has been to put a large area under crop on the chance of striking a good year, when a small fortune may be realised. But growers are being educated to the value of more careful methods as paying best in the long run. The average yield in Australia has been about 11 to 13 bushels per acre. The total area under wheat and the wheat yield in the different Australian States for the season 1913-14 was:--

+------------------+---------------+------------------+-----------+ | | | | Average | | State. | Area.--Acres. | Yield.--Bushels. | per Acre. | |------------------+---------------+------------------+-----------+ |New South Wales | 3,206,600 | 38,043,360 | 11.09 | |Victoria | 2,786,421 | 32,936,245 | 12.84 | |South Australia | 2,699,632 | 16,736,988 | 7.47 | |Western Australia | 1,104,753 | 13,496,242 | 12.02 | |Queensland | 132,655 | 1,769,432 | 13.34 | |Tasmania | 18,054 | 421,380 | 23.33 | | |---------------|------------------+-----------+ | | 9,948,115 | 103,403,647 | 10.39 | +------------------+---------------+------------------+-----------+

As stated, compared with some of the older countries, such averages seem small, yet in the dry districts of Australia they mean a reasonable margin of profit. In such districts it is estimated that a 10-bushel crop per acre will pay $0.60 per bushel. Of late years the price received by growers has averaged about $0.84 per bushel.

The average return does not show what a district or country is capable of producing, as it is reduced by the low yields of careless and unskilled farmers. The men are responsible, and not the soil or climate. There are thousands of farmers who never have a lower average than 20 to 25 bushels, while in some well-farmed districts a whole locality has averaged nearly 30 bushels to the acre. The whole tendency now is towards more careful methods and higher averages, and this will mean greater prosperity for the farmers. As it is, men have been wonderfully successful in growing wheat in Australia, and if this is the case with the careless, largely happy-go-lucky style of the past, the prospect is extremely promising for the future. In a way, new men coming into Australia, and taking up wheatgrowing, stand a better chance than many of the long-settled farmers who have got into a groove--even a profitable one--and who do not care to bother greatly with progressive ideas. The new comer has no preconceived notions, and comes with an open mind adaptable to the teachings of experience.

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