Acres. Wheat 604,400 Barley 22,474 Oats 6,184 Peas 3,713 Hay 139,807 Wheat, cut green for forage 2,598 Lucerne 3,441 Permanent artificial grasses 3,712 Flax 182 Potatoes 3,370 Orchards 2,762 Gardens 4,330 Vines 6,127 Other crops 816 Fallow land 153,566 The proportion of wheat to that of any other crop grown,--which is so great as to make all the other cereals sink into utter insignificance,--shows very plainly what the South Australian farmer regards as his special business. CHAPTER IV. WOOL. Whatever interests may for the moment be uppermost in the thoughts and words of Australian legislators and speculators, wool still remains and for many years will remain the staple produce of the country at large. In Victoria, indeed, wool is for the present second to gold. And in South Australia wool is second to wheat. The wheat grown in South Australia during eleven years up to 1871 has fetched an average of £1,283,630 per annum, whereas the wool exported from the colony,--in which is included a small amount exported from South Australian ports but grown in other colonies,--has fetched an average of £987,194 per annum. The wool produced has, in fact, been worth no more than three-fourths of the wheat grown. But the produce of a country which is exported always receives more attention than that which is consumed at home. Who thinks anything of the eggs that are laid around us, or of the butter made? In calculating the wealth of the country, who reckons up the stitching of all the women, or even the ploughing and hedging and ditching of the men? The calico and cutlery and cloth which we export, and the ships which take these things away, are to our eyes the source of our commercial wealth. I remember being told in America that in the year before the war the hay produced in the single State of Maine had been worth more than all the cotton exported from all the cotton States in that year. South Australia is perhaps in a safer condition than any other of the Australian colonies, because she can feed herself. But not the less on this account does she regard wool as the staple of the country. It is the business of Australia to supply fine wools to the world, and South Australia thinks that she performs her part of that business very well. South Australian farmers simply live comfortably and die in obscurity by growing wheat; but South Australian squatters make splendid fortunes or are ruined magnificently by growing wool.