REMAKING WETLANDS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 221

33-43; Powell, 1989: 41; Lloyd, 1988: 199-212; Waterhouse, 2005: 60-66,
200-201). 2
The establishment of the MIA created further upheaval for Wiradjuri. Following
the often violent frontier conflicts between mostly Anglo-Celtic colonists and
Wiradjuri, which reached their height in the late 1830s, many Wiradjuri had taken
up employment on the pastoral properties that dominated the region from the
1840s, mostly as a means to stay on country. In the first two decades following the
establishment of the MIA, more Wiradjuri moved into Missions or to places out-
side these intensively cultivated regions (Gammage, 1983: 3-17; Kabaila, 1995:
117-141).
As farmers began cultivation, it soon became clear that many of the crops were
unsuitable for intensive farming in the MIA. Soil salinity became a particular
problem, and was so severe in some places that farmers abandoned their blocks
(Langford-Smith and Rutherford, 1966: 25-29, 33-43; Lloyd, 1988: 199-212).
With the MIA bordering on failure, rice became one of a number of agricultural
products under trial by farmers and the state government to replace the unsuccessful
products. Initial trials of rice were undertaken at the nearby Yanco Experiment
Farm in 1915 by the NSW Department of Agriculture. These varieties had been
bred from Japanese rice by a recently migrated couple, Isaburo (J¯) and Ichiko
Takasuka. These trials were promising but not on the whole successful, and it was
not until Californian varieties were trialled between 1920 and 1923 that rice moved
into commercial production, with the first commercial crop being planted in 1924
(Langford-Smith and Rutherford, 1966:31; Watkins, 1926: 748; NSW Department
of Agriculture, c.1948: 2; 'Agriculture', 384A, SRNSW). Despite its water usage,
rice was seen to be valuable by farmers and the state government because in many
ways it suited the clay soils that underlay parts of the MIA that had previously been
seen as unproductive. The clay soils held water well and were dense enough to
prevent water tables from rising and thereby causing salinisation. Rice cultivation
also created suitable conditions for mixed farming, as the water that was still held
in the soil following a rice crop could be used to grow other crops or fodder for
livestock (Watkins, 1926: 748; 'Integration', SRNSW).
Ducks and the establishment of rice: Kinghorn
During the first commercial season, farmers reported damage to rice crops to the
Australian Museum, requesting a special open season on ducks (McKeown, 1923:
43; Frith, 1957a: 33; Correspondence, Australian Museum). The Australian
Museum was established in the early nineteenth century as a natural history
museum and its primary purpose was the collection of animal specimens and
taxonomic research. In the early twentieth century parts of the Museum became
redirected towards the needs of agricultural departments, as at other research
institutions in Australia (Kohlstedt, 1983; Robin, 1997). For instance, the Museum
undertook applied research into animal biology and behaviour that related to
agriculture, which drew on its strengths in zoology. 3 The Museum recommended