In the karoo veldt, in the Prince Albert district, the light rainfall, together with the violent slope of the country, renders numerous irrigation schemes impossible. But the karoo bushes need and are worth development, otherwise they will in time be exterminated. Our authority gives in detail a scheme by which this development may be accomplished, and declares that if the right method of preservation were adopted, it would probably be possible to feed three sheep where one can be fed to-day. [Illustration: TEA FARM, SHOWING COOLIES PICKING Reproduced by permission from the Natal Government Collection] The Oudtshoorn district is the garden of the Cape Colony. It enjoys a splendid climate and water-supply. The speciality of the Oudtshoorn Valley is ostrich farming. The birds in thousands feed in the lucerne fields on the banks of the Oliphants River. Crops of tobacco and potatoes, orange groves, vineyards and orchards are everywhere to be seen. There are still some 70,000 acres of land in the valley capable of development by irrigation if water could be found for them--and here many schemes are possible. "Unirrigated land in the valley, on which there falls annually from seven to ten inches of rain, is worth scarcely £1 an acre; while the same land, when irrigated, is worth from £30 to £100 per acre." It is impossible here to describe the practical remedies and improvement schemes suggested; the object of quotation is merely to give on authority, a concise outline of the rich vista that has been extended before us, and the perpetual prosperity that may be secured to the South African Continent if the Government should consent to adopt the measures suggested. In the advanced farms stock are watered from tanks fed by subsoil water raised by windmills. Wherever there are no permanent springs these mills, Mr. Willcocks thinks, might be made compulsory. He says: "I have seen stock drinking from shallow pools which contained mud rather than water, and in which dead sheep were festering. It might be possible to legislate that, if a reservoir is constructed, it must be fenced round and protected from entry by stock. The reservoir dam should be pierced by a pipe discharging into a trough, from which cattle should be given to drink." This would protect the water from pollution and save the cattle from contracting rinderpest and spreading it all over the country. The farms have a general area of some 12,000 acres each, with about twelve acres of cultivated land per farm. This means about one acre of arable land to a thousand acres of pastoral land. The cultivated area is divided thus--one acre of fruit or vegetable garden to about eleven acres under wheat, Indian corn, lucerne, and oat-hay. Here, the veldt will carry one sheep--these are principally merinos--or a goat, to four acres; or one ox to sixteen acres.[10]