permaculture

["Charles Knoles" <charles@growfood.org>]

Toby Hemmenway said:
>>From Scott Vlaun's interview with Mollison:
>> we have farms much bigger than Texas in Australia
[snip]
>> a 4 million acre cattle station in Northern Territory. "

>Interesting. Texas covers more than 170 million acres. So in Oz there are
>(several?) "farms much bigger" than 170 million acres (68 million
hectares),
>or roughly 1/10 of Australia. Can any of our Australian friends verify
this?
>Or is Uncle Bill being a little loose with his numbers? I'll buy 4 million
>acres--the US has those [wave the flag!!], but 170 million?

>Toby

  I think uncle Bill was exagerating a little.  When I was a young aussie I
remember it being said that there was a cattle station in Western Australia
that was in fact bigger than Texas but if memory serves correct was recently
sold and divided into a few pieces.  I doubt that there is or ever has been
"many" of them.

  After a quick websearch the closest thing I could find to evidence of this
place for my incredulous American friends was from:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/rorycotter/page2.html
"This company was situated on a famous cattle station called Victoria River
Downs. It was said that it was once the biggest cattle station in the world
and was actually bigger than Texas. This led to rumors of Texan Oil
Millionaires buying it and dividing it so that nothing was bigger than
Texas, but the fact of the matter was, it had been economically prudent, at
points in it's past, to sell off portions to further other interests."

  There is however a cool map image that shows Western Australia compared to
Texas at: www.westernaustralia.net/fast_facts/where/index.shtml  ;)

  Love to all

  Charlie