Challenge of Landscape
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The Challenge of Landscape THE DEVELOPMENT AND PRACTICE OF KEYLINE * * * by P. A. YEOMANS PUBLISHED BY KEYLINE PUBLISHING PTY. LIMITED 117 PITT STREET SYDNEY AUSTRALIA Downloaded from a public source, reformatted and corrected in 2014 to a document by Geoffrey Booth for Keyline Archive. www.youtube.com/channel/UCUPgPJZAlkxt207sxcdp4DQ/about THIS BOOK IS WHOLLY SET UP AND PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA BY WAITE & BULL PTY. LIMITED, 486 ELIZABETH ST., SYDNEY. REGISTERED AT THE GENERAL POST OFFICE, SYDNEY, FOR TRANSMISSION THROUGH THE POST AS A BOOK. 1958 COPYRIGHT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS BOOK IS PRESENTED AT SOIL AND HEALTH LIBRARY WITH THE SPECIFIC AND DIRECT PERMISSION OF ALLAN YEOMANS DEDICATION THIS BOOK is dedicated to the Trustees of the Keyline (Research) Foundation in appreciation of their willing co-operation and valuable support in the cause of Keyline. The Trustees of the Foundation are: SIR C. STANTON HICKS (Vice-President) D. R. MCCAUGHEY (Vice-President) C. R. McKERIHAN (Treasurer) PROFESSOR J. R. A. MCMILLAN DR. G. B. S. FALKINER JOHN DARLING MY WIFE AND MYSELF On the formation of the Foundation I was appointed President, and Harold N. Sarina accepted the position of Honorary Secretary. The real beginning of the work which led to Keyline was in 1944, our first full year on "Yobarnie", when my brother-in-law manager lost his life in the bush fire. So for my wife the early association with the whole project was one of deep bereavement, and but for her willingness to continue then, Keyline would not have originated. * * * SIR C. STANTON HICKS is Professor of Human Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide; is widely known in England, the United States of America, as well as in Australasia for his interests in land development. He founded the Australian Catering Corps in the Second World War and is Scientific Food Consultant to the Australian Army. In 1950 Sir Stanton was invited to deliver the Sanderson-Wells lecture at the University of London ("Food and Folly"). This year (1958) Sir Stanton has received the honour of an invitation to deliver in London the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture. D. R. McCAUGHEY, C.M.G., of Borombola Park Beef Shorthorn Stud, Wagga (N.S.W.), and Coonong Merino Stud, Narrandera (N.S.W.), is also a director of land and wool companies. The name McCaughey has been famous for generations in Australian pastoral history. C. R. McKERIHAN, C.B.E., is President of the Rural Bank of N.S.W., a position he has occupied for nearly 25 years. He has served on numerous committees and is known Australia-wide for the part he has played in charitable and philanthropic organisations, particularly his administration of the Australian Comforts Fund during the war. Prior to and during the war, he was Chairman of the Rural Advisory Council. Many Australians have been aided by his realistic summing-up of national problems. PROFESSOR J. R. A. MCMILLAN is Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Sydney. He was Plant Breeder at the Queensland Agricultural College and Lecturer, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Queensland. He has served with Australia's 'Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation' (CSIRO) as Principal Geneticist and was President of the Royal Society of Australia from 1941 to 1943. DR. G. B. S. FALKINER'S name is inevitably coupled with his famous Merino Stud, "Haddon Rig", but also has other extensive properties, is Vice-President of the N.S.W. Sheep Breeders' Association, a member of the Council of the N.S.W. Bush Nursing Association, and a Director of several industrial companies. He is Chairman of the Industrial Committee of the Nuclear Research Foundation and was honoured recently by the University of Sydney for his work for this Foundation, on which he is also a Governor. JOHN DARLING, another name famous in Australian national development, is a director of John Darling & Sons, flour milling firm founded originally by his great-grandfather. With his own grazing properties he maintains the same strong interest in rural matters as his father, who was a founder of the Waite Institute of South Australia. H. N. SARINA, the Honorary Secretary of the Foundation, is widely known all over the Commonwealth for his interest in live stock and agricultural pursuits. Each Trustee of the Foundation has expressed his views in support of the Keyline concept, but I may quote John Darling: "My father often said that Australia had everything except a good rainfall, and what the country needed was a high range of mountains down the centre of the continent, so that we would get the rain we needed. I regard Keyline as that range of mountains." CONTENTS Homage to P.A. Yeomans by Allan Yeomans FOREWORD PART ONE I Vision Ahead II The Aims of Keyline III Soil, its Life and its Climate IV The Keyline Scale of Permanence THE EIGHT FACTORS OF THE KEYLINE SCALE OF PERMANENCE V Climate VI Land Shape VII Water Supply VIII Farm Roads IX Trees X Farm Buildings XI Subdivision XII Soil PART TWO XIII The Keyline (Research) Foundation XIV Unfolding the Plan XV Completing the Landscape XVI Fertilisers. and Fertility XVII Why Soil Conservation? PART THREE XVIII Design and Construction of a Farm Dam XIX Drains and Irrigation XX The Choice of Farm Dam Designs XXI Rewards of the Balanced Landscape With twenty-one diagrams throughout the text Addendum by Allan Yeomans PHOTOGRAPHIC PLATES* THE CHALLENGE OF LANDSCAPE THE DEVELOPMENT AND PRACTICE OF KEYLINE PICTORIAL STORY *NOTE FROM SOIL AND HEALTH LIBRARY: These very interesting plates open in a "new windows". They are rather substantial downloads; most are well worth viewing. The Lemon-scented Gums of "Yobarnie" 1 Landscapes on "Nevallan" 2 Landscape on "Nevallan" and "Yobarnie" 3 Water Storage in Farm Dams 4, 5 Agricultural Water Control 6 A Study of Climatic Influence 7 Keyline-pattern Flow Irrigation 8 Irrigated Hill Country and Pasture Growth 9 The Spillway of a Large Farm Dam 10 The Drains of Keyline 11 Dam Troubles and Studies 12 Dam Troubles and Studies 13 The Calculated Risk 14 A Distinguished Visitor 15 People and Keyline 16 Farm Walks of "Nevallan" 17 Reservoir Under Construction 18 The Newly-completed Reservoir 19 Two Stories Illustrated 20 Cultivation and Implements 21 Installing the Lockpipe System 22 Keyline Control of Water 23 "Kencarley" Scenes 24 The Changing Landscape 25 "The Campbelltown Place" 26 A Keyline Experiment 27 "Pakby", Bathurst 28 Water Control and Soil Erosion 29 Soil, the Foundation of Landscape 30 Trees and the Permanent Landscape 31 The New "Nevallan" 32 * * * These 32 Plates contain 99 Photographs. (above) Except where otherwise acknowledged, all photographs were taken by the author and are selected from his property records to tell pictorially the connected story of the Development and Practice of Keyline. The Late Percival Alfred ("P.A.") Yeomans A MAN BEFORE HIS TIME By ALLAN YEOMANS Percival Alfred Yeomans or "P.A" as he became known to all alike, changed Australian agriculture. It is doubtful that any man in this country's history has had such a profound influence on the thinking and methods used by the Australian agricultural community. He was from the country, but grew up in a town. His father, James Yeomans was a train driver, and close friend of our World War Two Prime Minister, Ben Chifley. When P.A. started farming he had already achieved considerable success in business. He applied the same thoughtful and common sense approach to agriculture that had proven so successful in his other ventures. He knew what Australian agriculture needed. He created a "sustainable agricultural" system before the term was even coined. A permanent agriculture, he believed, must materially benefit the farmer, it must benefit the land and it must benefit the soil. His ideas of collecting and storing large quantities of run off water on the farm itself for subsequent irrigation was virtually unheard of, and quite opposed to state soil conservation departments then, and by some even now. His ideas to create within the soil a biological environment to actually increase fertility was unique, and totally opposed to the simplistic approach of the agricultural chemical industry. His ideas that using tyned tillage equipment and a unique concept of pattern cultivation could totally solve the ravages of erosion, was sacrilege in the eyes of extravagant and wasteful soil conservation services. They still are seen as a sacrilege to convention by many, even to this day. A quotation from the great German physicist; Max Planck, (1885 - 1947) seems so relevant to the concepts, the thoughts and the beliefs of P. A. Yeomans: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die". For how much longer must we say, "So let it be with Keyline"? In retrospect, Yeomans' entry into the farming world appears almost inevitable. As a young, man after abandoning a possible career in banking, he tried several fields, including the then very new, plastics industry. At one stage he was a highly successful door to door "Fuller Brush Salesman". The wealth and excitement of mining however, fascinated him and during those hard depression years, and with a small family, he completed a correspondence course in mining geology. That course changed the direction of his life. In the wild and charlatan mining days of the 1930's, he established the rare reputation of being a reliable and trustworthy assayer, and valuer of gold and tin mining projects. A reputation he held throughout the mining fields of Eastern Australia and New Guinea. The family was constantly on the move.