| 13,496,242 | 12.02 |
|Queensland | 132,655 | 1,769,432 | 13.34 |
|Tasmania[A] | 18,054 | 421,380 | 23.33 |
| |---------------|------------------+-----------+
| | 9,948,115 | 103,403,647 | 10.39 |
+------------------+---------------+------------------+-----------+

[Footnote A: Estimated.]

As stated, compared with some of the older countries, such averages seem
small, yet in the dry districts of Australia they mean a reasonable
margin of profit. In such districts it is estimated that a 10-bushel
crop per acre will pay $0.60 per bushel. Of late years the price
received by growers has averaged about $0.84 per bushel.

[Illustration: DISC PLOUGHS ARE POPULAR IN AUSTRALIA.]

The average return does not show what a district or country is capable
of producing, as it is reduced by the low yields of careless and
unskilled farmers. The men are responsible, and not the soil or climate.
There are thousands of farmers who never have a lower average than 20 to
25 bushels, while in some well-farmed districts a whole locality has
averaged nearly 30 bushels to the acre. The whole tendency now is
towards more careful methods and higher averages, and this will mean
greater prosperity for the farmers. As it is, men have been wonderfully
successful in growing wheat in Australia, and if this is the case with
the careless, largely happy-go-lucky style of the past, the prospect is
extremely promising for the future. In a way, new men coming into
Australia, and taking up wheatgrowing, stand a better chance than many
of the long-settled farmers who have got into a groove--even a
profitable one--and who do not care to bother greatly with progressive
ideas. The new comer has no preconceived notions, and comes with an open
mind adaptable to the teachings of experience.

The new settler has his path made easy by the attention the Governments
of the different States are giving to wheatgrowing. In all the States
there is a Department of Agriculture, and all its accumulated knowledge
is available to the farmer. In all the principal States there are
Government Experiment Farms, where new wheats are tried, and also the
best methods; the results are furnished to the public. In most of the
wheat districts there are demonstration plots showing the best varieties
to grow in the different localities. The new settler i