EXPERIMENTS IN THE RANGELANDS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 109

grasses could dry out in a drought and get carried away by the wind. He knew
rainfall was uncertain, and conditions 'decidedly arid' (Peacock, 1900a). As manager
of the Coolabah Experiment Farm, he did little wheat-breeding research. The
country there forced a change in the focus of his work at the farm. He was shocked
at the state of the western country after years of pastoral occupation. The varied
and 'luxuriant' grasses of the semi-arid plains and woodlands, such as Kangaroo in
the red country and Mitchell on the black soils, had been over-grazed and were
confined to a few protected areas and low-lying gilgais and cowals. The edible
shrubs that provided extra fodder in drought had also been eaten bare and trees had
been ringbarked. Pine scrub, bimble box seedlings, budda and acacias had 'taken
complete possession to the thorough exclusion of even the worst grasses' (ibid.:
655). On the river plains, on which woody scrub does not grow, saltbushes began
to be replaced by a related but spiny and unpalatable shrub called Roly-Poly. Many
of the 'once coveted western properties' had been abandoned, and millions of acres
were now 'beyond the scope of profitable occupation' (ibid.: 652).
There he was, 31 years old, alone in the far west, in charge of a new experiment
farm and assigned with the remarkable responsibility of undertaking what was
perhaps the most ambitious project scientific agriculture had attempted yet. He
stood amongst the forlorn remnants of former abundance, on red ground strewn
with parched fragments of soil-holding bushes, surrounded by grey and black dead
timber, and pulverised grasses. Tumbleweeds rode the wind from out of the flats
and collected on fences or in the thickening scrub. Most worrying of all, the
'perpetual summer winds' were creating 'ever-increasing' scalded plains of bared
subsoil. This country called on him to talk straight. Writing in the Agricultural
Gazette of New South Wales in 1900, Peacock declared the pastoral occupation of
the west was 'a period of deterioration unexampled in the history of New South
Wales' (1900a: 652). The numerous and visible examples of environmental
degradation were 'too familiar landmarks, resulting from the mistakes of the past,
and calculated to teach valuable lessons to those willing to listen to the voice and
teachings of Nature'. In Peacock's view, nature was an active presence. He gave it
a voice. These were the admonitions of a professional in a tough situation, invoking
the higher authority of 'Nature' against those whom he blamed for recklessly
exploiting the drylands.
The isolated experimentalist's words caught the attention of government officials
and in 1901 Peacock was called on as a witness in a Royal Commission investi-
gating the failure of settlement in the Western Division. In Peacock's evidence, the
Commission heard explanations for the changes in the western environment that
were based on scientific theory. Rather than listing 'non-edible scrub' as another
hardship forced on settlers by a deficient and backward Australian environment,
Peacock explained, 'Nature, in order to recover her equilibrium, is at present
producing vegetation capable of adapting itself to its natural surroundings by
its unpalatableness and protective spiny growths' (ibid.: 654). Peacock was a
Darwinist. Plant life was evolving to survive the pressures landholders were placing
it under.