for instance, takes a certain set of constituents from the soil. These must be given back in the form of manure, or the land inevitably becomes less able to grow wheat. Disease is at once a consequence and an evidence of insufficient nourishment. Hence many common crop diseases are Nature's protest against a direct infringement of her laws. It is probable that if lands round Camden,[1] we will say, had been well-manured, or if farming by rotation had been practised, rust might never have put in an appearance in County Cumberland. Now, in the earlier times, wheat seemed to be the ultimate limit beyond which the mind of the farmer never rose. Even now the bucolic mind is desperately conservative, and it seems hard to make the ordinary farmer understand that if wheat will not pay, something else might. Instead of resolutely tackling the problem of experimenting, of availing himself of all the modern discoveries and improvements in the
- ↑ Camden, a beautiful district in County Cumberland, New South Wales, is one of the earliest settled parts of the colony. It was here that wheat-growing was first introduced into Australia, and for years the rich soil gave returns so enormous, that the farmers in their foolishness cropped the soil to death. Subsequently rust made its appearance, and for many years wheat-growing has been abandoned, mills lie empty, silent, and unused, and sorrel, briars and weeds have taken the place of the golden leagues of waving grain. The farmers too grew lazy and inert. Fruit and grape growing has been tried latterly, but at the present moment phylloxera has made its appearance in some few vineyards in the district, and the Government are meditating measures for its extirpation.They are only meditating. How long they will meditate before they will act it is impossible to say.
