Further Aspects of Farm Management on North-Western Wheat Farms

Crop rotations and soil-management practices on a random sample of mixed crop and livestock properties on the North- Western Slope were discussed in the last issue of this journal. The survey on which the latter article was based was carried out in March, April and May, 1952, and seventy-six farmers were visited in the shires of Peel, Liverpool Plains, Macintyre and Yallaroi. As the survey was concerned mainly with practices on wheat farms, the sample was drawn from important wheat-growing districts in different parts of the North Western Slope. The first article included an analysis of the influence of the size of farms and different soil types on the cropping practices adopted throughout the area. In order to compare the practices of holdings of different size groups, farms of 600 acres, or less, arable, and of a total area not exceeding 1,000 acres, were classed as "small" farms and the remainder as "large" farms. A significant relation was found to exist between the crop rotations followed on farms in these two size-groups, ninety per cent. of the small holdings having a rotation of one-year in-two, or shorter, compared with fifty-five per cent. for the large properties. It was also found that higher incomes in recent years, largely due to higher wool prices, have enabled farmers, especially those on small holdings, to introduce wider crop rotations and other soil conserving practices.