Government farmers and the environment : Australia's wet frontier, 1870-1920
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Date
1994-10
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Abstract
Historical studies of Australian agriculture have tended to concentrate on the difficulties of farming in a dry environment. The extension of farming in to high-rainfall densely forested regions (what i term the wet frontier) has been almost completely overlooked. This paper is an attempt to redrees this imbalance.It concentrates on the economic and environmental consequences of the clearance and settlement of the wet frontier between 1870 and 1920.Up to about 1890 settlement was slow and often unsuccessful due to the high cost of clearance,environmental problems, deficiencies in transport and government hostility and indifference.However after 1890 increased demand for butter and improvements in production technology transformed the wet frontier in to a highly productive agricultural region.
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Australia Agriculture, farmers, Environment