THE FARMING INDUSTRY.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 715, 10 January 1903, Page 4

THE FARMING INDUSTRY.

(by John L. Macdonald.) No. 2.

As in arts and sciences, so in agriculture, the Egyptians excelled as befitted their country, which was as I have said before, the centre of known civilization. It was in lime of scarcity the graiuery of the surrounding nations. You will all recollect having read in the hook of Genesis of the seven years famine that scourged the land in the time of How Joseph’s brethren were -sent from the Land of Canaan into Egypt to buy corn. As the text .says, “ There was no bread in all the land for the taurine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. Further on we read that when theii m-oney failed, the Canaanites and the •Egyptians- bartered their cattle for bread, after that their land, and lastly themselves- they sold into servitude to Pharaoh that they might “live and not die,” as the text has it. Then we read that, when the term of the years of the famine were ended Pharaoh allowed them seed 1o sow the land upon these conditions. Here are the words “'And it shall c-ome to pass in the increase that ve shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh,and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and lor your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. the State evidently did good business through the famine, owning as it did in consequence all the land, all the cattle, all the people and a prospective fifth of the increase. Yet fellowmcnibers, such a state of things is not altogether without parallel in our own time. After even one bad season -in New South Wales, for instance, hundreds of fairness have to barter what poor crops they have to their storekeeper, and apply to the 'Government Tor seed wheat when the sowing season comes round. The EXTRAORDINARY FERTILITY of the Egyptian soil was entirely due to the periodical overflow of the Nile river The waters subsiding deposited a rich sliuiß u P on the - surfacc oE the land. This same land bore in 'one year three or four different kinds of crops..,. First, lettuces and cucumbers, then com, and after harvest various kinds of beans and pens peculiar to the country,. One not unnaturally wonders how, it was possible for the river, large as it was, to inundate the whole country without some assistance on the part of its inhabitants. Here, again, wc , find a, method employed which is today partly used in Australia, and which will in time to conic bethe sali ration of the pastoral and agricultural industries in that, drought stricken country. .1. refer to irrigation. Numlvcrles-v canals or trenches were cut from the great river itself,threading their various ways throughout cities, towns, and villages to t.he’very extremities of the kingdom. The surrounding land being comparatively ' low, and the number of canals so great, it is estimated that of all the waters which flowed into Egypt during the three months of the overflow not a tenth part of them ever reached the sea. And not only to the . benefit, of the cereal crops did the overflow of the Nile contribute, hut . also to the nourishment of flocks and herds, which fattened in an incredibly short space ot time, so rich were the pastures after their topdressingof slime. It may be mentioned that during the actual time of the overflow, the cattle and sheep were fed on hay, chaff, and beans. Contrast for a moment this state of fulness and plenty with the existing state of things, agricultural and , pastoral, in Australia at the time of writing. There,, day by day, the sun rises in heat, sails through a cloudless sky, and sets a ball of Are. The nights are dewless, and the moon only renders more, ghastly the depressing panorama. Two years with out rain. Think of it ! The earth Iparches, the grass withers and dies, every blade of vegetation disappears. The wind carries before it whirling

columns ot blinding dust. The drought fiend stalks throughout the land. Sheep and cattle in hundreds of thousands die miserably of HUNGER AND THIRST.

What scrub there was has been cut 'down for them ; what leaves there were upon the mournful eucalyptus has been flioked oj to afford them what sustenance they could, Now the living gnaw the bones of the dead, •tie water is left in dams and reser-Still-the rain comes not. What litvoirs are rendered filthy and putrid by the carcases of sheep and cattle, for the wretched animals, too weak to extricate themselves from the mud, fall, never to rise again. For mile upon mile, and over thousands of acres, may be seen sheep and cattle in all stages of exhaustion. The hawks and carrion-crows hold high festival in these regions of death and disaster. ... - . . .

7 have not the figures pertaining to the present drought, but in a similar drought in the years 1884-85, it was estimated that in New South Wales alone it was responsible for the deaths of 200,000 horses, 1,500,000 head of cattle, and 13,500,0000 sheep, a loss estimated in money at from fifteen million to twenty million pounds sterling. And this, recollect, was in one single industry and in one single colony. At present, the lot of the agriculturalist is very little better. The grounh (too hard and dry to plough at the right time), and the season advancing, the farmer scratched it over somehow and sowed Ins grain. The grain in many instances has inner germinated, and in cases where it has withered oil upon appearing above ground—unable to withstand the blighting winds and the torrid heat. Little wonder is it that the Australian farmer, even in his most prosperous times, is full of anxiety for the coming season. At the present moment, thousands of acres in wheat, oats, and barley will not return the seed sown on them. We in this country, working wider so much " abis conditions, can have more iav„. ruto »nd no idea oi the wiaea,... •

misery occasioned, which W'U ther accentuated as the season advances. And not alone in Australia do farmers work under such To be continued.