the
percentage of phosphoric acid is low. Although the average yield is
lower than other parts of the wheat belt, wheatgrowing has proved very
profitable in the Mallee country, and there is plenty of evidence of
that fact.

In Victoria the Mallee country is an important part of the wheat belt of
that State, there being over 800,000 acres under wheat last season
(1913-14) out of a total area for that State of 2,786,421 acres. Yet it
is only within the last ten years that it has had any reputation for
farming, being mostly looked upon as useless. Most of the first settlers
were share farmers with little capital, but with brains and energy, and
many of them are now worth from $50,000.00 to $100,000.00. There were
failures in the early days, because there was want of knowledge of the
proper methods of working low-rainfall country for growing wheat, and
also proper methods and lack of proper implements for that class of
country. Suitable implements, especially "stump-jump" implements, have
been evolved, and there is a solid guide for the new settlers to follow.
One of the leading farmers in the Mallee country in Victoria, Mr. R.
Blackwood, at Hopetoun, where the soil is of average quality and the
rainfall less than 14 in., started on the share system in 1892. It was
seven years before he adopted the "bare fallow" method, an essential in
such country, and since doing so he has averaged 16 bushels per acre. In
the record dry year (1902) his crop went 8 bushels to the acre, and paid
working expenses. By 1913 he was the owner of 5000 acres. He crops about
650 acres each year, and fallows about the same area, working on a
three-year rotation of fallow, wheat, grazing.

[Illustration: CARTING STOOKS.]

FACTORS GOVERNING WHEATGROWING.

The principal factors governing wheatgrowing in Australia are:--

Conservation of soil moisture by fallowing the land.

Sowing of varieties of wheat most suitable for the different
districts.

Judicious use of fertilisers.

The settler has not to find these things out for himself. He has the
assistance of well-organised and progressive departments of agriculture
in the different States to tell him what to do, how and when to do it.
The working of his land is a matter upon which he will be fully
informed. He will have the scientific experience of the departmental
experts, the examples of local experimental plots, and the experience of
working farmers to guide him in