The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-05-25

Tie Vast Resources OF Australia.
There is an area equal to an English
county for every man, woman ana
child In the Australlas. absolutely I'M
occupied and undeveloped, asserts
Mr.. Edmund Mitchell, OF Victoria, In
the Engineering Magazine.
No amount Of word painting or pill
Ing up OF statisttcs can give even a
faint Idea Of the vast potential wealth
OF Australia. Full revelation only
comes when one travels over the
country and, seeing In patches here
and there what the soil Ia really capa-
able OF. finds the land veritable will.
dernese. with no signs OF human oc-
cupation, except for Q Few sheep
fences.
The malice scrub OF Victoria, ex.
tending over tens OF thousands OF
square miles, has only TO be rolled,
burned of and tickled with the stump.
jumping plow to produce harvests OF
wheat that cannot be beaten In any
other part of the world. The vast,
perfectly fiat area lying between the
Murray and tho Murumbidgee rivers
has soil rich as that OF q garden, but
but 1t is given over to sheep, running
about one to the two acres and pro
ducing about seven ehillings' worth
OF wool Der annum.
In Queensland. upon tho savannahs
stretching hundreds OF miles In every
direction, the traveller rides or drives
through the natural heritage reaching
to his buggy poles or his saddle girths
and In days Journey sees only lew
hundred sheep or a few score OF cattle;
population In the proper sense oil the
word there IL none.
The unbounded productiveneee OF
these virtually waste lands Is proved
by actual results. Australia can grow
meat, butter, cheese. wine. fruit and
wheat for the whole world. From q
few butter factories in Victoria. for ex-
am pie, q single steamer has recently
taken away fS5, worth of chilled
butter, and shipments are proceeding
upon this scale weekly for three
months each senson, although 1t ia
, only within two years past that the
export trnde In this article was com.
. menced.
Victorian brandy has been pronoun.
ICED by the British medical journals to
be equal in quality to the finest French
cognac. The results already achieved
: lin Australia show almost unlimited
} possibilities for wine making. The
f.fruit trade also has an Infinite future,
, :
lemo ns. pears, apples, plums. pine
Iappl.s, and almost every other known
variety capable Of sea transport Hour
, fishing as In the sunniest corners oil
France, or Spain or Italy.
} Then even the already important
; pastoral industry is capable OF expan
i Ision, for an immense area OF country
J lie still unstocked, and in the wool
, growing districts a system OF sinai
farming, with cereals and stock divid
ing tie attention of the agriculturist
, would vastly increase the productive
ness OF the sheep runs. The fattenine
OF sheep and cattle for export in thu
r frozen state to the markets OF Europe
] is an enterprise as yet merely in it,
/ Infancy.
i The primeval forests In many re
, lgions are rich In valuable timbers, bu
ring Of the woodmans axe. INSTEAD
of the 3, 600 camels now in use in tn,
: arid regions OF Central Australia
b there might be a hundred times tina
n number opening up pastoral countr,
q las yet incapable OF occupation. througl
q tho impossibility OF getting up station
!, supplies and enabling gold reefs to b
worked where men cannot now sui
sist for scarcity OF water.
8 Only pinch of the mineral wealth
t in the bowels OF the earth has ye
s been extracted. In Tasmania is tn
e Ibiggiest tin mine In the world Noun
/ IBischoff; in New South Wales the big
:, gest silver mine in the world, the Pre-
lprietary; In Queensland the biggee
gold mine in the world, Mount MOI
5 gan; IN South Australia one OF tn
n biggest copper mines, Moonta; aroun
n New Castle, New South Wales. anon
l.. the most extensive coal measures any
d where to he found. But, though hun
q dreds OF millions OF pounds sterlin
= worth OF minerals have been raised !
= Australia, 1t is certain that thousand
Is of millions remain to be won.