because as the land goes out of cultivation, the workmen leave the district and general stagnation ensues. . . . Not one-tenth of the available land is under cultivation."[A] And it must be borne in mind that agriculture is the basis of existence in Victoria.
The Government realise this. There are the Agricultural High Schools, an Agricultural College, a School of Agriculture at the University, and every primary school has its experimental plot of ground for gardening. Australia has its own peculiar problems to solve here as in other districts, especially that of breeding wheat which will be "drought-resistant and capable of growing outside the existing rainfall margin of profitable cultivation." It is believed that vast areas of pastoral country in the interior of the continent, which now support a few sheep, might be successfully brought under cultivation, if a kind of wheat could be evolved that would grow, as many native grasses grow, under a low rainfall. As yet the average of wheat grown per acre is very low, only amounting in ten seasons up to 1911-12 to 10·58 bushels an acre, due, it is believed, partly to imperfect methods of cultivation, as well as to the growth of wheats that are not well adapted to local conditions.
[Footnote A: "Handbook to Victoria," p. 40.]
