Land Of Great Potential

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 8

Land Of Great Potential

A PICTURE of a country, the potential of which is as yet barely scratched has been brought back to Canterbury by Mr W. T. Abbott, of Fernside, who recently visited Western Australia and travelled round in the company of two former advisers to the Lauriston Farm Improvement Club who have been working with farm advisory services in the state. They are Messrs P. M. Falconer and R. A. Knox. Mr Abbott said that a million acres of land was being made available a year in Western Australia. A condition of the purchase was that a certain proportion of the holding should be developed each year, but he said that he knew of country in the Wongan Hills area, north-east of Perth, covered with scrub 3ft or 4ft high which could be broken in and sown down in wheat so that a return could be obtained in about a year. In the south-eastern part of the state, he said, he had heard of a block of wheat country which was being made available at 5s 9d an acre.

Mr Abbott said he could not see how a man with energy and a certain amount of capital could go wrong there though living conditions were not very good. There were heat and flies to contend with, but the heat was a dry heat and was less uncomfortable than conditions were sometimes in Canterbury. Mr Abbott said that one of the members of the advisory service which was served by by Mr Falconer had come over from the eastern part of the country in 1947 with assets worth £2OOO. He had share farmed for a start. Today he had 2000 to 3000 acres which was estimated to be worth about £lB an acre. In the last three years the carrying capacity of his pro-

perty had increased from 0.47 ewe equivalents to the acre to 1.2, and was expected next year to go to 1.5. Four years ago he had built a modern home with every convenience. Until that time he had lived and brought up his family in a tent. ’This man would this year be netting some £5 an acre. It was now part of the job of the advisers serving these people to teach them how to spend their money.

Another farmer on to whose property Mr Abbott went had lived with his wife in part of an implement shed until 10 years ago. Farmers like this man had great faith in advisers like Mr Falconer, he said. About three years ago he had mentioned to Mr Falccner that he had been offered 56d per lb for his wool on the farm. The adviser had suggested that his wool was worth more than this and that he should ask 60d. The result was that he had made a sale at 59d. This same man has now taken over another block of 3000 acres of virgin country 14 miles or so away from his property. Change When Mr Falconer had first come to this part of the country farmers had been lambing in the autumn. Lambing percentages were about 60 per cent. Mr Falconer asked why they did not lamb in the spring when there was some feed. Now they are lambing in the spring and percentages have gone up to about 90. Lambs are sold mainly as stores but bring prices as good or better than prime lambs in New Zealand. Run-off on this cleared country leaches salt which is carried on to flats and care has to be taken to watch the salt content of water held for stock on this country. While

there is no vestige of green grass, it is a land of windmills and water is plentiful. In this country sheep were only a sideline, said Mr Abbott, for this was in the wheat belt with a rainfall of 12 to 16 inches a year. Here the fear was that there would be too much rain. Rains were awaited between mid April and mid June to allow cultivation and sowing of the wheat to take place. After it came there was a 24-hour-a-day frenzy of activity to get the large areas of wheat in. On one property he said that a farmer had two 70 horsepower tractors mounted in tandem and they hauled two 30 blade disc ploughs that could turn over 500 acreas in 24 hours. Following the initial working the area was left long enough for weeds to germinate and then work began again with 20ft wide cultivators or grubbers. Subsequently came the seeding with large disc or coulter drils with three quarters of a bushel of treated seed and half a hundredweight of superphosphate being sown to the acre. The aim was to go from ploughing to seeding over a period of about four weeks.

Most header harvesters in the area were driven off the power take-off of the tractor and farmers carted their wheat in their own trucks to silos that were only about 10 to 15 miles apart in the wheat belt.

The yield average for crops in Western Australia was six sacks to the acre and in the Wongan Hills area the average was a little better.

Mr Abbott and his wife gained a vivid impression of the vastness of Australia when on their way home they travelled on the trans continental railway between Perth and Adelaide, leaving Perth at 6 p.m. on a Sunday and arriving at Adelaide at 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday.