{"id":6517,"date":"2025-02-05T03:58:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T16:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/?p=6517"},"modified":"2025-02-05T03:58:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T16:58:50","slug":"yarrawonga-02-feb-1878-the-river-murray-is-so-low-at-present-that-it-can-be-waded-through-in-several-places-to-the-opposite-side-by-school-boys-123deg-f-50-5-celsius-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/?p=6517","title":{"rendered":"YARRAWONGA. 02 Feb 1878. The River Murray is so low at present that it can be waded through in several places to the opposite side by school boys. 123deg F = 50.5 Celsius"},"content":{"rendered":"

YARRAWONGA. (1878, February 2).\u00a0The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 \u2013 1946)<\/i>, p. 25. Retrieved Feb 2, 2025, from https:\/\/trove.nla.gov.au\/newspaper\/article\/143308631?searchTerm=yarrawonga%20the%20month%20of%20january&searchLimits=#<\/a><\/p>\n

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The<\/span>\u00a0month<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0January,<\/span>\u00a01878, will be long remembered by\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0farming community as a period\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0heat and drought scarcely ever known or experienced in this colony before.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Thursday,\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a010th inst.,\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0heat was most intense,\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0thermometer registering 123\u00b0 in\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0shade, and 158\u00b0 in\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0sun.\u00a0The<\/span>\u00a0weather still continues extremely hot and dry.\u00a0The\u00a0<\/span>absence\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0rain is causing great anxiety among all classes\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0community. Sheep and cattle are almost famishing for want\u00a0of\u00a0<\/span>feed and water.<\/div>\n
In\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0back parishes tanks, dams, and reservoirs are nearly all dry, and water for domestic use has to be carted long distances. Well-sinking has only proved successful within a distance\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0five or six miles from\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0Murray River. Several wells have been sunk in\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0neighbourhood\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Hill Plain, and they either obtained brackish water at about 100 feet in depth, or bottomed on solid rock.\u00a0The<\/span>\u00a0threshing machines are all busily at work, and\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0returns in most cases are hardly up to expectations.<\/div>\n
The<\/span>\u00a0average yield\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0wheat, so far as I have been able to learn, is about from 10 to 12 bushels per acre;\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0quality\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0grain, though good, is not equal to that\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0last year.\u00a0Of<\/span>\u00a0oats and barley\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0average is not large, and\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0yield from 15 to 18 bushels. Maize and sorghum, together with all root crops, have been an entire failure this season. Fruit trees, vines, &c., in\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0gardens, where not attended to by watering, have succumbed to\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0severity\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0drought.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Unless on\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0banks\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0river scarcely any effort has been made to grow vegetables.\u00a0The\u00a0<\/span>River Murray is so low at present that it can be waded through in several places to\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>opposite side by school boys. Sheep farming is not carried on to any very great extent in this district ;\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0area\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0320 acres is by far too small to combine cultivation and sheep farming successfully, as\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0small number a farmer can keep will scarcely pay\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0cost\u00a0of\u00a0<\/span>looking after them.<\/div>\n
But from another point\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0view they will be found very profitable, if only to supply\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0farmer\u2019s household with meat, which is very scarce here, and often almost unobtainable at any price. Our railway agitators in this quarter are very lax to their own interests in not properly organising themselves as to secure railway extension to this important district.<\/div>\n
Meeting after meeting has been held with\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0attendance so small that nothing could be done, those taking least interest in\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0movement who would be likely to benefit most by it until\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0matter has been allowed to lapse altogether for\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0present.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YARRAWONGA. (1878, February 2).\u00a0The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 \u2013 1946), p. 25. Retrieved Feb 2, 2025, from https:\/\/trove.nla.gov.au\/newspaper\/article\/143308631?searchTerm=yarrawonga%20the%20month%20of%20january&searchLimits=# The\u00a0month\u00a0of\u00a0January,\u00a01878, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[384,385,96,21,372,103,386],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6517"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6518,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6517\/revisions\/6518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}