South Australian Wheat-growing.

Otago Witness, Issue 2286, 23 December 1897, Page 30

South Australian Wheat -growing.

fjr TO THK EDITOR. Sin, — In an article in last week's Witness you said that it was a pereunial puzzle to New Zealanders how South Australian farmers lived on the small returns per acre they receive from their land. Perhaps I may be able to give them an idea. Some yenrs ago my wife received a letter from one of her bi others, a farmer in the Morgan Hundve 1, South Australia. He mentioned iv the letter that he had SOO acres of land, and that a little over half was in wheat, which would go about 10 bushels to the acie, and that with the help of two boys and eight horses he could strip it all. I am not certain, but I think he said that he expected four or five bushels an acre the following year from seed dropped while stripping, without doing anything more to the ground. Perhaps the harrows might be run over the ground. I have always heard it said in the part of Victoria that I was in that the South Australian farmer only sowed wheat in one place every "second year. Whatever they got per acre the first year they expected the half of that the next jear, and they did that time after time, till the ground got so dirty with -weeds that it would grow nothing but weeds. Then when they could not get any more fresh ground they made an important discovery - they found that by turning sheep on the giound and letting them run for three years the ground was cleaned and in a better condition than ever jfc bad beea ja,-l am, etc.. D. M,