The veldt and the karroo, say the pessimists, offer no home for the Englishman. They moreover aver that only so long as the mines hold out will the settler remain in South Africa. But there are others, Lord Kitchener and Lord Milner among them, who see in the country the latent possibility of modern North America, or, at least, a great agricultural future which will endure long after the history of the mineral districts is a closed volume. The science of irrigation in its most modern development--"the foundation-stone on which can be built the permanent prosperity of South Africa"--is capable of transforming the profitless deserts into flowering gardens and fruitful orchards which in very few years will do more than pay their way. But to properly develop any scheme requiring eternal vigilance, industry, and foresight, it is necessary that a goodly sprinkling of the enterprising British population shall be dispersed all over the land, so that not in the towns alone will the characteristics of the dominant race be maintained. [Illustration: WELLWOOD FARM IN GRAAFF REINET DISTRICT (Mixed grass and karroo veldt)] Some one has said South Africa must irrigate or perish. This may be a truism; but it is also very certain that South Africa, while irrigating, must offer homes to a leavening mass of sound and desirable British settlers before the irrigation schemes under discussion can effect the agricultural transformation which, in British hands, might speedily come to pass. The nature of this settlement and the expedition of it, from an economic, social, and political point of view, is declared by Lord Milner to be of supreme importance. A new and progressive farming population must reinforce the old; for, it is most essential "that the old condition of things shall not be reproduced, in which the race division coincided almost completely with a division of interests, the whole country population being virtually Boer, while the bulk of the industrial and commercial population was British." The three great essentials of any successful scheme, according to Lord Milner's showing, are these: it must have magnitude, it must deal with land of good quality, it must attract settlers of the right kind. In the matter of magnitude there are many and intricate questions to be discussed. Land settlement must be undertaken on a large scale else it will be politically unimportant, the Boer States will remain Boer States in all but name, and any money advanced by the British speculator will be like the talent hidden in a napkin--just a talent and nothing more, till the end of the chapter! The Government must assert its paternity; it must control, it must assist. On all sides simultaneous effort must be made to march in time with the progressive note that, once struck, must be continuously and consistently re-echoed throughout the length and breadth of the new Colonies. The best quality of land must invite the