.

[Illustration: A FINE CROP OF WHEAT.]

Again at Mr. G. Laidlaw's farm, "Elm Park," Jindera, Albury, New South
Wales, 28 bushels 56 lbs. were obtained on fallowed land with a rainfall
of 752 points.

With a seasonal distribution of rain wheat can be successfully grown
with an average of 10 in. There are growers in country that ten years
ago was considered outside the wheat belt, that is, the safe country,
who for the last five years have never harvested less than an average of
25 bushels per acre. Yet an average of 12 to 15 bushels has proved
profitable.

In Victoria, wheatgrowing can increase fivefold before the whole of the
suitable land is brought under the plough. The wheat crop of that State
should, if the settlers are forthcoming, within a few years reach
8,000,000 acres, provided that one-third of each farm is regularly
cultivated. The area under wheat in 1913-14 was 2,786,421 acres, so
there is room for thousands of growers yet.

In South Australia and in Western Australia there are immense areas,
running into millions of acres, which yet remain to be brought under
wheat. In Queensland wheatgrowing practically remains to be developed.
At present stockraising proves most profitable, but there is no question
that in the course of time that State will add immensely to the wheat
belt of the Commonwealth. In all the States the usual course has been
for wheat to follow stockraising, after the latter have sweetened and
improved the soil, making it more compact and suitable for cultivation.
In new lands, where the soil has been practically untrodden for ages, it
is seldom immediately suitable for the cultivation of wheat, in what
later on proved to be ideal wheat districts. Therefore, in such a vast
country as Australia, which totals 2,974,581 square miles, it is beyond
man's calculations to even estimate what proportion may ultimately come
under the plough.

At the present time, however, it is far from extravagant to say that
while Australia is now, roughly, producing 100,000,000 bushels of wheat
on 10,000,000 acres, it is capable, without improving the average yield,
of producing 1,000,000,000 bushels of wheat from 100,000,000 acres. And
as the experience of good farms has conclusively demonstrated that the
average yield could be much greater than it is at present, with good
farming methods, the general use of more suitable varieties of wheat,
not to mention the still greater improvement in the breeding of su