GRIP OF DROUGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 107, 1 November 1940, Page 8

GRIP OF DROUGHT

THE WORST FOR

YEARS

LARGE AUSTRALIAN AREA

(By Trans-Tasman Air Mail, from "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, October 24.

New South Wales and many large areas in the other States are in the grip of drought. In some parts of New South Wales, especially in the wheat and pastoral areas of the north-west, conditions are described as worse than those of 1903, the year of the "father of all droughts."

"Because of the drought," said the New South Wales Director of Agriculture, Mr. A. H. E. McDonald, "the outlook throughout the State is critical. The wheat crop will be only half of what was anticipated, and it is now too late for rain to improve it. Grass is very short throughout the western districts, in many of which sheep are low in condition and are dying. When the really hot weather comes, rain will be of little use because the ground dries up so quickly."

"It is to be hoped that the farmer will always possess his. present independence, courage, and initiative, for he will need all three in future," said the Under-Secretary for Agriculture, Dr. E. J. Noble, in estimating that, because of drought severity, the State wheat crop will be at least £5,000,000 less than last year's.

Victoria has a similar sorrowful tale. The Premier, Mr. Dunstan, said that the wheat crop of that State would be only one-third of normal, and prospects of the pastoral industry were also bad. There would be few lambs for export from many of the State's districts.

I Streams in the Narrabri district, j centre of the worst-affected area in New South Wales, are lower than at any time in living memory. They are, in fact, more of a hindrance than an asset to stock owners along river frontages, as stock looking for water are becoming bogged, and land holders have been compelled to fence off the rivers. A Railway Department officer, investigating stock mortality near railway lines, counted 5300 dead sheep along a comparatively short stretch of line.