EXPERIMENTS IN THE RANGELANDS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 101

farm at Coolabah, amidst the saltbush plains and Bogan scrub (Figure 7.1), to
investigate wheat-growing in dry country. One was corporeal with little planning
or forethought. The other was cerebral and material and was carried out according
to the formal principles of an emerging field of science. Both were about dealing
with a 'hostile' environment and for an understanding of how Europeans could
handle heat and aridity. The experiments arose from the intersection of local and
empire-wide anxieties and were underpinned by provocative new ideas about the
living world. How does scientific agriculture engage with the imperial and national
agendas within which it operates? How do we see this manifest in place, and how
does place itself shape scientific agriculture?
In September 1896, the New South Wales Labour Bureau sent 70 gangs of ten
men each to the Bogan scrub near Nyngan (Anon, 1896c). Their task was to clear
vegetation in preparation for the break-up of the large pastoral lease holdings and
the settlement of small farmers. The Bogan River marks the transition between
rich alluvial soils of the plains to its east, and older sandy red soils to its west. In
some places the change is abrupt, but in other places there is a mix of black and
red soils, shifting clays and sandy rises, and gilgais and cowals that hold water long
FIGURE 7.1 Location of the Bogan River in western New South Wales. To the west
of the river are the semi-arid woodlands pejoratively named the 'Bogan scrub', to the
east are the Darling Riverine Plains.
Source: Cartography by Damien Demaj.