Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/148

 *teen bushels per acre. The land on which the experiment was tried was worth about $25 an acre. The rainfall here varies from six to sixty inches, but the heavy rainfall usually comes in torrents, when it is not needed. In the center of the country, at points farthest from the coast, there is almost no rain at all. We were passing through what is possibly the best section of Australia, and it looked very dry to me; I saw almost no rivers or creeks. It reminded me of India, or Colorado, or California, but my traveling acquaintances said: "Ah, yes; it looks dry now, after two months of drouth, but when the rain comes it will look as green as your country." I said: "It is evident that you run fewer sheep per acre here than in New Zealand." They admitted it, but said the volcanic soil of New Zealand was much inferior to the chocolate soil of Australia; New Zealand has more rain than Australia, but not as good a soil, a fact I had myself noticed Wheat piled on the ground in sacks, seemed very shiftless to me. I saw no grain elevators, such as we have, and when the wheat is shipped, it is loaded in open box cars; no protection from the weather. But in spite of many evidences of a dry country, you see many evidences of prosperity here, too. Australia is almost as big as the United States, but has only five million people; it doesn't need to feed a dozen sheep per acre. I also heard much of irrigation projects, and the country seems to be booming At 8 we changed to another train; to a railroad with a gauge of five feet three inches. The standard gauge of the world is four feet eight and a half inches; the usual narrow gauge is three feet six inches. The train on the