DESERT TO GARDEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 12

DESERT TO GARDEN

MAGICAL EFFECT OF RAINS

(By Trans-Tasman Air Mall—From "The

Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, February 2,

The magical recuperative powers of the Australian soil were demonstrated in New South Wales by the State-wide rains last month.

Before the rains came,, drought had reduced the country to a desert-like bareness, sheep and cattle were skin and bone, watercourses and^ rivers were dried up. ' V.-\

The transformation is remarkable The warm soil is now yielding of its best in pastures and crops, and no district is without surface water Herbage and native pastures have come on so quickly in the pastoral areas that many graziers are now hoping for a dry spell to put "body" into the feed. Mitchell' grass, the great standby of much of the north-western and western country, has shot up so rapidly that sheepmen declare there is already sufficient feed for the next twelve months. At least the autumn and winter are assured. The difficulty is to get sufficient stock to eat the grass.

Many animals have already reached fat condition, and store stock are being much sought after. In the dairying country feed is growing "a foot a week," and, as a corollary, milk and cream production is mounting daily. In most districts the output is now up to normal for this time of the year, and, as the cattle improve, it may rise to something approaching record figures. • /