The climate is mild, the high temperatures that occur in summer are mitigated by the absence of humidity, and extreme cold in winter is unknown. Sheep, cattle, and horses live out of doors all the year round and thrive on natural herbage, so that neither artificial feeding nor housing is necessary, and the cost of production is thus greatly reduced. It is superfluous to enter here into figures showing the purposes for which the area of the state is leased or alienated, but beyond the limits of agricultural settlement more than 143,000 square miles are held by Crown lessees as sheep or cattle runs. Formerly the principal part of South Australian wool was shipped to London, and it was not till within the last forty years that local wool auctions attained importance.
Agriculture is determined by the rainfall, which varies from 10 or 11 inches in northern and inland districts to 30 or 35 inches in the south and in the more hilly regions. Within these widely varying conditions almost anything can be grown from corn to grapes, nearly every kind of cereal, fruit, or vegetable. But economically all the conditions of agriculture are very widely different from those at home, for it must be taken into consideration that the wages of farm labourers are about double those paid in
