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Mallee - Part 2
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Image 133
Mallee - Part 2
Image 133
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conclusion, that without railway connection to a port of shipment it must remain an absolute impossibility for an agricultural community, located on the mallee belt in question, to profitably engage in agricultural pursuits, and seeing that until the land is cleared, cultivated, and improved, stock carrying possibilities may be registered as nearly down to zero, there is small prospect of pastoral pursuit; but it must be remarked that this last point does not apply to the belt of country already alluded to, beginning, say, about 75 miles from Esperance, right away to Norseman and beyond, which, has considerable grazing and stock carrying possibilities, that is, proportionate to the rainfall, which, of course, is not an abundant one. Thus, unless the railway is justified by a reasonable prospect of considerable agricultural settlement, the present body of settlers, over 50 in number, who no doubt, have been inducted or attracted there by the hope of a railway, should certainly be compensated for their loss of capital, and hard work and hardship, and should they desire be located on agricultural land within a profitable distance of railway in other district if the State. The extent and characteristics of this mallee belt have been the subject of various inspection and reports by surveyors between 1911 and the present date, also by officers of the Mines and Water supply Departments, Messrs. O' Brien and Middleton, and earlier than theirs (I think in 1911) by Surveyors A. G. Hewby and May, and whose inspection and report (by Mr .Hewby ) in 1911 we have perused, and consider that it most faithfully describes the special and peculiar features of the land, in lucid and most informative and practical terms, considering there was, at that time, little or no experimental settlement or cultivation, except at the Grass Patch, to guide him. The total area of land, taking as a starting point some 28 miles from Esperance (as any nearer to Esperance than that the nattier of the land becomes so sandy, scrubby, and hopeless in appearance—always excepting many patches and pockets of better class—that it may reasonably be counted out as an agricultural proposition)—from this point up to about 80miles distant from Esperance, and extending back, say, some 15 miles on either side of the proposed railway line (as being the limit of profitable agriculture) there is comprised an area of nearly a million acres, of which though by several ardent champions of the district, and also for the building of the railway, we were advised that about seven-eighths of it could safety be reckoned on as wheat-growing lands, yet impartial conviction compels us to prefer as a guide the estimate of surveyor Hewby in his report in 1911 (12) to the effect that certainly not more than two-thirds, judged by soil appearances , could be allowed to give any hope of profitable agriculture, and we desire at this point to emphasise those qualifying words" soil appearance" as later on we hope to more fully explain. We would also, even though savouring of reiteration, again emphasise our previous allusions to this feature, that the only reason for limiting the boundary of this area of country on the north end to the 80-miles peg from Esperance, is the question of diminishing rainfall, which about this point is down to an average of from 11½ inches. For, as to the land, it really far surpasses the southern end in fertile appearance and quality, and thence right on to and away beyond Norseman, it takes on a rich and attractive appearance, much of it similar in appearance to the red streaks on the Midland Railway, such as three springs, and similar localities. On this mallee area, and scattered about over it, but keeping near to the proposed railway line , there are some 40 to 50 settlers, struggling along in the face of crushing difficulties, and most discourage results, and though Mr .White, the Lands and Bank Inspector of the district, had not his complete returns with him, yet he was able to give us a list of the crop returns of the majority, some 35, who this last season had cultivated and sown some 2,000 acres of wheat and over 1,000 acres of hay crop, for a gross yield of approximately 11,400 bushels of wheat and about 470 tons of hay, that is an average of slightly under six bushels average of wheat and about 9½ cwt. of hay per acre, the best or top record we could hear of being from a small patch, yielding, we were told, 15 bushels and 20 cwt. of hay, while another settler, McKinnon, reaped a 10 bushels average off some 53 acres. In the light of such disappointing result (and the average of the previous three years being a yet lower one) we naturally made more diligent inquiries, also keeping our eyes on the alert to discover the reason thereof. Several settlers thought that though the total rainfall (1915) was ample yet there was an excess of rain in June and July, but after August it cut off suddenly, when the wheat should have matured. Others pleaded a touch of the Septoria blight on the blade and stock (in patches). Many blame the methods and inexperience of the bulk of the crop put in hurriedly with very shallow cultivation . and the often mallee suckers growing in competition with the wheat, and against that we came in contact with several settlers who were experienced farmers from mallee district both in Victoria and South Australia, and they were puzzled to account for the low yields .One Victoria mallee farmer , whose land was not the best reckoned that on appearance it was as good as parts of the Wimmera, where they often got 15 to 18 bushels. A South Australia Yorke's Peninsula farmer said the land was not as good, because there a crop would grow without superphosphate, but here it would not. We also examined the subsoils by aid of a spade, and in many instance (though not in all),but in the better class of country, this examination only increased the difficulty of explaining the reason, as we considered that in many instances the land, judged by both surface and subsoil, with a 13 to 14 inch rainfall, should have yielded 15 to even 20 bushels, or 1½ to two tons of hay. This remark applies to areas of the better class of land, as considerable areas are not up to this standard of outward appearance. We then more closely questioned the more experienced class of settlers, and who confessed that they themselves could not account for the disappointing yields of not only this, but also previous seasons, and at last both of us having our suspicions, we asked some whether they suspected the presence of salt in the soil, beyond the amount that is tolerable to the wheat plant. One or two admitted that there was evidence of saltiness, other did not seem to think the solution was to be sought for there., but close observation revealing to us that wherever land had been cultivated it immediately exhibited a growth of pig face and other saline plants, coupled with the additional observation, which was one of the most disappointing features forced on us, viz., the slowness and apparent unwillingness with which grass made its appearance on the land, though it had been not only rolled and burnt off, but ploughed and cultivated and dressed with superphosphate for two years in succession. Even upon the older holdings and clearings, such as Grass Patch, though no one would dispute that a fair amount grass grew in some of the paddocks, yet judged by the character of the land and the amount of annual rainfall, 14.60 average, the grass is neither as thick nor abundant as one would expect to see, and we should judge its grazing capacity to be, say, about two to two and a half acres to the sheep for the period between 1st September to 1st may, inclusive, though possibly the soil containing, according to analysis, a full sufficiency of lime and potash, stock should fatten, yet we should judge that the grass would dry off quickly after cessation of the winter rains. For an average of this mallee belt, even after three years successive cultivation, we incline to the opinion that its carrying capacity for stock is of rather a low standard for the season though. We hope that we may be proved to be too pessimistic in this estimate. There may be a contributory cause, in the fact of a Mr .Mann's analysis, showing the soil as deficient in nitrogen, which of course is a fertile agent in the growth of leaf and grass. This feature, in view of the widely admitted maxim that for a farmer to permanently succeed and make any reasonable profit from his holding, sheep and say a bit of dairying (that is grazing) in addition to his wheat and hay production is an absolute necessity. For one thing the serious and important question of "humus" stares him in the face in a menacing attitude. Does anyone imagine that the agriculturist on this mallee area can go on from year to year stimulating his land with phosphates, and upon the land which Mr Mann's analysis report as rather deficient in humus and nitrogen, and yet escapes the period when the exhausted humus will.
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