Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/186

 Australia on such knowledge as can be afforded by meteorology; and perhaps no country in the world is more disadvantageously placed, since at present there is no means of obtaining information from the waste of ocean which lies to the south."

This brings us to a problem of very great interest in the land question in Victoria, a tendency to convert agricultural into grazing land. Returns show that the very large holdings of 10,000 acres are decreasing in number, and that an aggregation of holdings of from 500 to 800 acres constitutes the present problem. The successful farmer tries to increase his holding, but when he begins to grow old, and is confronted with the disorganisation and high wages of agricultural labour, he relinquishes cultivation and resorts to grazing stock on his larger area, which will provide him with a comfortable living. Consequently less labour is employed, the local schools decline, the trade of the neighbourhood languishes. So it comes about that many of the richest districts of the state are the least progressive. The land around these centres," says Professor Cherry of Melbourne University, "is probably as rich as that in any part of the world. But instead of the farm areas being reduced by subdivision they are steadily growing larger by aggregation The evil is intensified,