Conditions and Prospects of Farming, Dairying, and Fruit Growing in Western Australia; A Report Made to the Hon., the Minister of Lands (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...of cuttings irrigation is necessary. I believe there are great possibilities for lucern in the south-west, and no plant offers greater scope for experiment on an extensive scale. It lives through the summer all right, and affords a bite of green feed all the time. I would like to see some of the sand plains tried for this crop, but I foresee a difficulty in keeping down the young growth of broom bush, wattle, &c. Fodder Plant Required.--In view of these facts, I am inclined to think that the fodder of the future on the Western Australian summer pastures will not be a grass. What it will be, I cannot say, but it will need to be a plant or plants which will have the power to feed on the subsoil, as do vines and fruit trees and such native plants as the broom brush, stink bush, and wattle. One most noticeable fact in connection with the cultivation of fruit trees and vines is the remarkable growth they make when freely cultivated, and no one can fail to observe how the young wattles grow on cleared land after been broken up. We have an example of a useless but hardy summer plant in tne stinkwort (Inula graveolens), which is such a pest on the stubbles and fallows in South Australia. What is wanted is a good fodder The above, I think, affords one suggestion for the utiKsation of land which will not grow summer grass and cannot be irrigated. There must surely become fodder plants which will gro-v as well as those I have referred to, and produce succulent fodder. The value of one such a plant would be so great that /t would be worth searching the world for it. It is in such work/that I think much of the value of a Department of Agriculture lies, rather than in repetition of experiments in wheat-growing, for example, which practical farmers can do far bet...