Perhaps it may interest our readers to know something about these rules. Sixty men are employed on a farm throughout the whole year, and in the busy season three times that number are engaged. Here is the substance of the rules:--
"The bell rings at five o'clock in the morning, and this is the signal for everybody to get up. Horses are groomed and fed before six o'clock, and at that hour the men are served with breakfast. At seven o'clock the teams are harnessed, and teams and men go to the field. At noon one hour is allowed for rest and dinner, and then work goes on until five o'clock in winter and six o'clock in summer. Then the teams return to the stables, and the men get their suppers at seven o'clock. The horses are fed and watered at eight o'clock, and by ten o'clock everybody must be in bed."
First-class hands on these farms receive twenty shillings ($5) per week, and employees of other grades are paid in proportion. One clause in the rules says that any man in charge of horses who abuses them or neglects to care for them properly will be discharged at once, and forfeit all wages that may be due him. Penalties are stated for every sort of offense, all of them being in the shape of fines or loss of situation, or both. Every laborer who begins in a low position is promised an advance in pay and place as a reward of his industry and good conduct.
"There are a good many farms of this sort in South Australia," said Ned in his journal, "and we are sorry that time prevents our visiting all those that we have been invited to see; but our regret is modified by the recollection that one farm is very largely a repetition of another farm, and so we accept the situation and say nothing more about it. South Australia is a great wheat-growing country, and ships an immense quantity of wheat to England. In good years it produces fully fifteen millions of bushels for export, in addition to the quantity required for home consumption.
"Next in importance to the wheat crop in South Australia is the crop of wool. There are nearly seven millions of sheep in the colony, and between the wool and bread-stuffs, the income to the country is very considerable. We now understand the uses of the immense sheds, and the grain elevators that we saw when we landed at Port Adelaide. Large as they are, the capacities of these places of storage must be taxed to their utmost in busy times.