The products of arable agri culture are characteristically oats, barley, potatoes and fodders. Tasmania was once the granary of Australia, but the uncertainty and dampness of the native climate, together with the competition of the later-developed and more suitable continental wheat-lands, have discouraged home production. A little is grown near Laun ceston and Hobart under the influence of the milling industry there (cf. the slight rise in recent years: 1924-25: 13,000 ac., 231,000 bu.; 1927-28: 28,000 ac., 672,00o bu.), but in general Tasmania tends to import wheat and similar products. Her posi tion opposite the great port and market of Melbourne—and more remotely and occasionally, that of Sydney—greatly aids this process of specialisation. Oats, barley (malting), hay (chaff), pulses, potatoes—and also dairying with its associated pig-rearing, bacon-curing, cheese and butter making—have in fact a distribu tion clearly influenced by climate, soils and commercial position. The central northern lowlands—from Deloraine, through West bury, Longford, Evandale, to Lilydale may be said to centre on Launceston which is both a market and exporting centre. The 15 mile wide strip of fertile coastal lowlands which stretches north-west to Stanley, backed by a similar belt of pastoral country and, beyond this, by timber areas, finds an outlet in such ports as Ulverstone, Penguin, Burney.
As more intensive forms of land utilisa tion have progressed, the pastoral industries have tended to de cline, especially as in Tasmania there is small room to move away as settlement advances. To some extent, however, this tendency has been checked by specialisation, "meat" cattle, for example, being replaced by dairy herds, while in the case of sheep, careful local adaptation has led to survival, e.g., of "utility" (meat-wool) types as elements in a mixed farming regime. Notable, also, is the achievement of several long-established sheep-breeding fam ilies in rearing high-class strains.
Sheep.—The whole of the west of the island is too wet, or too wild, for sheep, and these are confined mainly to the areas with 3o in. or less ay. ann. rainfall which comprise the south-east of the island, relatively few being scattered along the north coastlands.
The greatest concentrations are in the upper and central Mac quarie River basin and in the northern hill-lands of the Derwent Coal basin ("The Midlands"). The Longford, Evandale and Oat lands districts show densities of 30o per sq. mile, and here the sheep fit into the farming rotation and are mainly marketed as meat, fresh (Launceston, Hobart) or refrigerated (export). In the north other cultivations (v. sup.) are more profitable. In the poorer and rougher eastern hill and coast lands fewer are kept, but the central highlands provide good summer grazing-grounds for sheep from the adjoining districts to the east. Cattle, apart
from dairy cattle (v. sup.), are decreasingly important, but they are found in the rougher lands around the borders of, and between, the better farming areas along the north and east and more par ticularly in "the midlands" (i.e., northern Derwent-Coal River hill-lands) and here tanning assumes local importance.
These have grown up upon the basis of the primary producing industries and are still often locally associated with them : extraction and refining of metals; sawmilling; making of jams and preserves, dairy products, bricks, tiles and pottery; tanning, etc. (v. sup.). Sec ondary are the chemical, cement, carbide and electrode industries; making of furniture, agricultural implements, etc. A new tendency, however, has now appeared, namely for industries of a larger and more derivative type to concentrate in Launceston and Hobart (qq.v.). As this tendency develops greater strength, the manu facture of chemical products, cement, iron, paper, artificial silk, woollen and other textiles may be expected to assume consider able proportions. The reasons lie partly in the presence of raw materials, partly in the favourable position of Tasmania with relation to (chiefly) Victoria, New South Wales and South Aus tralia, but mainly in the fact that Tasmania, along with a cool climate, possesses reserves of water-power. The water-power re sources are the property of the State which develops them and sells power in bulk to large consumers and municipalities, though it also retails power to consumers in Hobart. The Great Lake scheme (63,00o h.p.) is completed. Advantage has been taken here of the Great Lake, whose area has been increased to 6o sq. miles and depth to 55 ft. by means of a dam, and also of a dif ference in level of 1,250 ft. between the parallel valleys of the Shannon and the Ouse. The Shannon scheme, adjacent (13,000 h.p.), is under construction. Launceston (q.v.) and its district, as well as Hobart, is supplied from the Great Lake system, other systems being the Lake Margaret-Zeehan, Zeehan-Rosebery (under construction), Country District and North-west Coast Service. So far only 52,000 h.p. has been utilised, the Electrolytic Zinc Works (Risdon) consuming 35,00o h.p. ; the Carbide works, 3,500; Hobart, 8,50o; Launceston, 3,000. The further reserves of Tasmania are estimated at over 50o,000 continuous h.p. Besides the State schemes the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Co. can supply 8,000 continuous h.p., and there are numerous smaller mining and municipal supplies.