A VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10765, 19 September 1900, Page 3

A VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA.

yiEWS Of A CANTERBURY SHEEPFARMER.

(Br Mb H. F. Gbat, Woodend.) PART I. CAPETOWN, August 5* On leaving New Zealand last May for South Africa, I was r .quested by _ Canterbury member of the House of Representatives to give my impressions of this country for publication- I made a sort of promise to do 60, and I forward my impressions to "The Press." I fear my stay in South Africa has been too short for mc to have formed a perfectly correct estimate of its capabilities on the point to which I attach most importance, and which is unquestionably the most, important in determining the merits of any new country, namely, its value for fixed settlement. In forming my opinion I have brought to bear all my past colonial experience, I have travelled many hundreds of miles, and have kept my eyes open, arid further, I have gleaned all" the information I could from those with whom I have come in contact, and when information has been conflicting, aa has sometimes been the case, I have endeavoured to give most weight to the information of those who by practical experience I have thought most to be relied on.

IMPRESSIONS OF CAPETOWN. The Nineveh, of the Aberdeen line, in which I travelled from Melbourne, reached Capetown June Bth, nearly mid-winter in this country as it is in New Zealand. I was not much impressed with Capetown. With the artificial character of the country, however, I do not propose to deal muoh, but rather with its natural conditions. I will say though that the suburbs of Capetown are pretty, and on the Wynberg siue extremely pretty, especially to an Englishman who has any love for English woodland scenery. About Wynberg the oak has been planted extensively, not merely in lines along roads, but in masses, and the roads of the district are like avenues through forest, beautifully shaded, and must be particularly 'inviting in the summer hi__t, and are so in the warm days of winter. Interspersed with the oaks ai_ here and there specimens of the eucalyptus, and tliiy to some extent dispel the i-lusion that the scene is English. The gum thrives w.tli in thei neighbourhood of the Cape, and the oak not k_s so. The latter is sjvid to be of no value ilor timber, probably on account of its ra,pid growth, and also perhaps because it is only far a short time of the year out of leaf. Miany subunbon (residence.., apparently complete in comfort and l luxury, have been built in the district in grounds nicely laid out and planted, but the most picturesque dwellings, to my taste, are the older habitations thatched with a rush of very lasting qualities, and laid on with the neatness and finish which might be observed in country districts in England a few years back, but where tbe art is now almost lost. The buildings of the Cape are almost invariably of brick, plastered and roughcasted, and no description of roof is so suited to that style of building as thatch ; and no other, roof is so suited to a warm climate. But now the exigencies of insurance demand a safer material tor roofing, and the universal corrugated iron is rapidly taking the place of thatch, much to the disfigurement of the dwellings, and I should say to their discoomfort.

RESTRICTIONS ON TRAVELLING. I was detained in Capetown a few days longEir than I had expected, chiefly on account of the restrictions imposed on travelling by the military operations now going on in South Africa. It was necessary for mc to obtain a permit from the military authorities to travel in the districts near the Orange River Colony border, and as I wished to extend my journey as far as possible into the interior, I did my best to obta&i the necessary passport, and succeeded so fax as the whole of Cape Colony was concerned. This privilege was somewhat of a concession, as I was only a civilian travelling for pleasure and curiosity, and having no business in the country as an excuse for the application. My difficulties were not ended with obtaining the permit, for the Chief Traffic Manager of the railways objected to granting a circular tourist ticket, which I wanted, because the military permit did not cover tie whole range of a circular ticket; the Free State railways, which by arrangement with the Cape railway authorities are comprised in the circular ticket being excluded from the permit. The Traffic Manager, who had every desire to facilitate my wishes, eventually gave way on my suggesting that the condition should be endorsed on the ticket that it was issued subject to the military authorities allowing mc to travel in the Orange River Colod.j. The ' difficulties with regard to the journey being ended, I at once started from Capetown. FARMING IN SOUTHERN CAPE COLONY. As my object was to make my inspection of the country through which I passed as complete as railway travelling would allow, I decided to make short stages, and those only by day, unless night journeys were absolutely imperative in consequence of the time arrangements of the trains. De Aar, 500 miles from Capetown, was my first objective. This journey occupied six days, including the stoppages on the road. Worcester is 109 miles from Capetown, and here the "Great Karoo" is supposed to begin. Karoo is a term for desert, though the Great Karoo can hardly be called that, as it is in its own way suited to sheep if not overstocked. For the first few miles from Capetown the country is fairly level, and has a stunted scrub growth, and the land generally is desperately poor. Here and there is some cultivation as market gardens where the land is better. The hilly country is soon reached, on which the scrub growth continues. Small spots of flat land interspersed through the hills are cultivated, as also some of the lower slopes of the hills. Small patches are devoted to vine culture, and larger patches to the growth of grain. Where the land can be ploughed the extent ploughed seems very small; nor is this surprising considering the general poverty of the soil. The system of grain growing is this. The scrub is cleared and the land ploughed and sown. A secondi crop is tb*n taken from the same land, which is then rested for three yeare without cultivation, and without any fallow or grazing crop filling the interval. When the turn of the land has come to be cropped again the land has reverted to some extent to its primitive condition, and the scrub requires more or less clearing before the next course of cropping is proceeded with. ' Thk method of farming appears wasteful and hardly just to the land, but probably the treatment is as good as the land ie worth.

THE YIELD OF WHEAT. The Cape farmers have a way of measuring the yield of a crop which I should say is peculiar to themselves. They measure it by the amount of seed sown, and say the crop is seven or fourteen times the quantity of the seed sown. The usual quantity of wheat sown seems to be about half a bushel to the acre, or one bushel to the morgen—a morgen is two acres. This is rather an indefinite way of arriving at the yield, as the quantity of seed put in is rather on the rule of thumb principle, but I take it that the average yield of wheat per acre would be about six or seven bushels, and from the samples shown mc. the quality, even in the best of seasons, ia inferior. Rust was very prevalent last season in both wheat and oats, and the wheat of that season which I saw was certainly not better than New Zealand tailing wheat, if as good. Rust is said to have become very common of late years in the grain districts of the Cape, where formerly .it was not known. This is rather transposing the condition of things as found in New Zealand, where sour land, when first taken in hand, frequently produced rust, but in the course of some years of cultivation the land became sweetened, and the rust disappeared, or was much reduced in virulence. "TRAVELLERS' TALES." I made the acquaintance of a miller at Worcester, who told mc that half a bushel at wheat to the acre was the usual quantity sown, though he himself had used a» mudt

as thr-e-quarte-S of a bushel. He then enquired of mc how much we sowed in New Zealand, and when I told liitn that one and a quarter bushels was about the quantity, except for late spring crops, when the seeding was sometimes increased, he expressed the opinion that it was impossible for tlie land to support a crop of that thickness, and! could see that he inwardly scoffed at my statement. When I furt.icr informed him tliat in exceptional seasons, and on land exceptionally good and well farmed, we sometimes got 60 bushels o? wheat to the acre, or even more, his face assumed a greater expression of scorn, and he evidently totally discredited my statement. After this silent and expressive rebuke I became very guarded in my intercourse with South Africans as to the capabilities and productiveness of New Zealand. Another miller informed mc that it was the practice of New Zealand farmers to shorten their oats by a mechanical process for taking off the tips, to give the oats a greater -appearance of plumpness. The idea that our (farmers, who often havo to sell their oats at ls 3d or Is 6d a bushel, shou-d resort to such a trick is altogether too ludicrous. A POOR COUNTRY FOR STOCK. The country for som. miles from the coast aLong the route I followed, some 100 miles probably, is said to -be almost valueless for stock, and certainly the paucity of stock of any kind s__med to confirm, the opinion, but as a ifact the paucity of live stock wherever one travels in Cape Colony is a striking characteristic. In some spots of course there are more than in others, though nowhere that I have been lias the country the appearance of much capacity for carrying stock, except in the soiir "veldt"' districts, and there the grass is of a coarse, tufty nature, and seems deficient in nourishing and appetising properties, and those parts are as short of stock as elsewhere. Four hundred miles of the journey to De Aar is karoo country, consisting of shallow, rocky soil, except small patches of alluvial wash about watercourses. These watercourses seem to be only supplied with water immediately after rainfalls, which are infrequent and com. in thunderstorms of short duration, so that nearly the whole rain, instead of penetrating the soil, runs off the dry, hard surface, and makes its escape. All this portion of ths karoo does not grow grass, only stunted, scrubby herbage on whlcTi sheep, cattle and horses subsist, and, one is often told, fatten till the herbage its reduced to dry sticks by drought, though fit stock, as we understand, the term, I have not seen in Cape Colony. I do not know that I have seen a beast or a' sheep which would pass the meat factories of New Zealand. What is considered n. good sheep here would kill about 45!b, and sometimes run down to 351b;- and cattle I tliinl. are almost as lean. I have even seen beaf larded, a process of passing a pipe of fat through .as lean flesh, which is not very uncommon on the continent of Europe. The settlers, though, appear to have adapted themselves to the Scan chasucter of their meat, and habit has reconciled them to it, and it may be has induced a preference for it, though the meat is usually tough and muscular to a degree. (To be continued.)