An old farm boy's worst nightmare...

This article doesn't surprise me. In the 1870s many farmers claimed rain followed the plough and tried to grow wheat at Farina in South Australia, 1000km north of where it will grow, and where Goyder said it would. He marked a line on a map, the 10" rainfall isohyet, as the northern most limits of successful agriculture in South Australia. The 1870s were very wet, so cropping took place well north of this line, Farina was its most optimistic expression. Come the dry seasons in 1879-1880, it was a very rapid retreat staged by the farmers, to where Goyder had suggested. Really what this article is suggesting, is not that rain follows the plough but flees the axe. And the axe has been very busy in this country, and farmers are very protective of their right to use it. South Australia passed legislation many years ago protecting forest and woodland remnants-scrub-and the bulldozers were at wotk day and night in the weeks and months before the legislation became law. Now we have some science to show that right for what it is. Bob Hawke, as Prime Minister, wanted to plant a billion trees in the 1980s, 50 billion, perhaps 100 billion, should have been the aim. The photo shows Mount Misery on Yorke Peninsula, in the middle of a very large area sewn to barley. Once the whole area was scrub like that still on the mount. These very large cleared areas sewn to crops give many parts of South Australia a low, smooth, and rolling appearance, little interrupted by trees. It is aesthetic that is very particular to that place.