THERE is a farm better than most farms in the low hill lands of eastern Australia. Though located in a sparse rainfall area, it is free from drought and flood, the twin curses of Australia. There cattle grow fat, and a multitude of visitors flock to it as if on a pilgrimage.

are not indiscriminately scattered and pastures are certainly not poor looking.

These paddocks once held most unimpressive looking dirt – it could not be called soil. Now, despite an unfavourable agricultural climate, deep, dark soil supports the pastures, soil that was not there a few short years ago. How has this been brought about?

And the beautiful dams, there is something different about them. Their banks are grassed; the water is clear; there appear to be drains leading to the tops of the dams, and other but smaller drains coming out from the very bottom at the back of the walls of the dams.

It becomes obvious that these dams and their drains, with the trees, the fences and the roads, follow a pattern, and that the dams will readily catch any rain run-off from the hillsides. The larger taps, or valves, at the back of the dam and apparently placed in the smaller drains, allow water to flow out of the dams, around the ridges and valleys, and down the slopes.

Here, on what were barren, eroded slopes and deeply gullied valleys, which earlier were thought to have no water resources for such purposes as irrigation, there is now a large area of irrigated land which covers almost half of the entire property. Most of the water comes from that which actually falls as rain on the property.

a harmonious, satisfying and, with all, a highly productive, enterprise.

This farm belongs to Mr P.A. Yeomans, and is the home farm of Keyline. Situated at North Richmond, New South Wales, it lies on the outer edge of the County of Cumberland, the county which includes the city of Sydney and the surrounding country. The farm is divided into two parts, one called “Yobarnie” and the other “Nevallan”. They look different and are very markedly so, because of their history and the way they have been worked. And so they will be referred to as district entities.

When we look into the development of this combined farm, we find many contradictions against conventional agricultural practices. For instance, the many clovers and grasses of the pasture appear to be in extraordinarily good condition. The green of the grass is healthy looking and the soil beneath the pasture is almost black. It could be thought that the soil was always like that, and that artificial fertilizers have been used profusely, but such is not the case. These orthodox aids to good pasture have been sparingly used, and only for the initial sowing of the seeds of grasses and clovers. This attitude toward the use of fertilizers is uncommon and differs markedly from that of most farmers. The finest pastures on these properties have had only one hundredweight of superphosphate per acre, which was sown with the seeding eight years ago. This amount could be considered ridiculously low for such country, when orthodox recommendations for much better land than this would be a minimum of one hundredweight of superphosphate per acre each year. There is plenty of white clover throughout the irrigated areas of these farms, but strangely enough there appears to be just as much in the non-irrigated rain pasture, which is surely remarkable in the types of soil found in the outer areas of the County of Cumberland.

was once almost dry land has now an amazing development of water resources. Likewise, the once shallow and poverty-stricken soil and poor pastures have been changed to deep, dark, fertile soil, and high-quality forage for cattle production.

An “Eye for Country”
THE greatly changed landscape was not all improved at one. The owner had to reach out for a new appreciation of land shape, in detail, and over the whole large property. Geographers, engineers and all scientists who work with land must first appreciate and understand the meaning of land surface shape. They must have “an eye for country”. Now, every landscape consists in the first place of a series of small valleys, each a small water catchment. In turn, these combine in regular pattern to form a major catchment. Keyline “eye for country” begins with this first feature of the landscape – the smallest valley. Because it is of first importance, it is called the primary valley . This small valley will have its own rain run-off until it meets another valley. Surrounding this small valley is a neutral area, so far as water flow is concerned, which separates one primary valley from the next. This neutral area of no water flow, a ridge, has been called the primary ridge , and the whole combined – primary valley and the portions of the two adjacent primary ridges – becomes a primary land unit, and an entity by itself. This is sound geographical analysis.

Beyond this primary land unit there is another primary valley and its primary ridges, and probably several more. Arising out of the heads of the primary valleys and surrounding them there is a ridge or water divide. This has been called the main ridge. The main ridge divides one series of primary valleys and primary ridges from another. The most significant aspect of this analysis is that it involves a pattern, a recognition that smaller shapes are integrated to form a larger whole, and that this pattern might be repeated several times on a single medium-sized property. This pattern, too, could extend over quite large areas of Australia. It will be realized by geographers that there could be other large landscape types, but each would fall into some kind of pattern, depending upon the nature and structures of the rock formation, and the geological and climatic history of the land. In all probability Keyline thinking and planning could be adapted to these landscapes also. The anomalies of a glacial or sand-ridge desert landscape might prove the exception.

primary valley changes its slope perceptibly at a point where rain run-off from the valley sides would collect together to form a small stream or torrent.

It can also be seen, as one proceeds up the main ridge, that each primary valley's collecting point is higher than the collecting point of the primary valley below. A line joining these points would rise as it progressed upstream. The appreciation of this fact is of the utmost significance to potential landscape management.

On paper
Not only must land scientists and farmers have an eye for country, they must also “see” their land on paper, since working on land and planning on paper must be performed together systematically. The best way to show land shape on paper is

by means of a contoured and scaled map. Contours on paper represent horizontal lines on the ground, or better still, outcrops of horizontal surfaces on a slope. They also denote heights above some fixed base level, usually sea level. Contours marked out of the ground would be level lines. On paper they would twist and turn, depicting valleys and ridges, steep land and level land.

One can appreciate the shape of land from a suitable contour map of the land much better and more readily than one could from an examination of the land itself. Although these lines appear to be indiscriminately spread, this is not so. They follow very definite natural patterns. Within the pattern of these contours lie some of the secrets of Keyline, a unique method of land development and improvement originated by P.A. Yeomans.

The word “Keyline” also designates a particular line. A careful scrutiny of a piece of farm land shows that in each small primary valley there is a point which separates the steep head of the valley from the more gradual slopes at its foot. It is the point, named by Yeomans and Key point, at which the valley first flattens out. A line through this particular point of the valley on a true contour or, in actual practice, at a slight gradient, is called the “Keyline of the Valley”, hence the name applied to this whole method of farm planning and development.

This “Keyline of the Valley” does not apply to rivers or creeks, large or small, but only to the smallest valley of all. This first valley shape, this smooth-bottomed valley, which a farmer can work with his implements, this alone has a Key point and Keyline.

The primary valleys in the huge watershed area of a big river system will be found in considerable numbers, some falling to and shedding their water directly into the river, and others right through to the limit of the total catchment, miles or even hundreds of miles away, where they form and shed their water into the smallest streams, which themselves eventually feed into the river.

For a primary valley to be a valley it has to be contained; that is, there must be a ridge on either side to give the valley its form. These ridges are the first ridge shape; in Keyline they are called primary ridges. These two land forms, the primary ridge and the primary valley, are classified in Keyline as the smallest units of land shape. Practically all agricultural land consists of these two shapes, plus the larger ridge rising above them and out of their upper portions. This larger ridge, enfolding as it does the primary valleys and primary ridges, is called in Keyline the main ridge. This main ridge is local and does not refer to a more remote ridge, as, for example, a distant mountain range. These main ridges are like the primary ridge and primary valley in that they can be found in large numbers near a river and right through the entire catchment area of a large river.

To get a clear idea of a main ridge, picture the junction of any two small streams that you know of. There will be a ridge between them which continues to separate the streams as we move higher up the land. Eventually this ridge joins other ridges which in combination enclose the catchment area of each of the small creeks. In reverse, if we follow the course of the main ridge downwards to the junction of two creeks we will find that on both the right and left hand, primary valleys and primary ridges fall from the main ridge to the creek, each primary valley shedding its run-off water to the creek.

big problem is made up of innumerable small problems.

Again, each main ridge contains two or three, perhaps many more, primary valleys which are roughly similar in shape. As the primary valleys fall from the main ridge, the tendency is that their Keypoints have a rising relationship to each other as one moves up the general rise of the land.

largest land unit considered in this analysis. Land has another dimension, namely length. Standing on the main ridge and looking along a primary ridge towards the creek below, this distance is called the “length of the land”. This length on Nevallan is four hundred yards; on Yobarnie it is longer, while on the gently-sloping country of western New South Wales it can be five or more miles.

The significant aspect of this classification or analysis of land shape is the recognition of the fact that smaller shapes are integrated to form the larger whole, and that this pattern, in a suitable agricultural climate, persists and repeats itself indefinitely. For development purposes the elements of the pattern can be taken singly or they may be taken collectively in small or large groups. The significant point is that these patterns may repeat themselves several times on a single medium-sized farming property.

The recognition of certain valley and ridge patterns in the landscape is not the totality of appreciation for these purposes. As stated earlier, each primary valley changes its slope appreciably at the point where run-off rain from the upper valley sides would collect together and form a small stream or torrent, that is, the Keypoint of the valley. It can also be seen that, as one proceeds up the main ridge shape, each primary valley's collecting point of water will be higher and higher up the landscape. Furthermore, where the development of water resources warrants the construction of farm dams for irrigation, it may be possible to locate dams on the Keyline of these primary valleys (should they be found to be of suitable shape for this purpose) in such a manner that one dam would overflow, by means of a suitably sited drain, into the next dam in the neighbouring valley.

extension of the Keyline of the lower valley in such a way that it forms the line for a feeder drain, or water transporting drain, to control the movement of overflow and keep all run-off water from the high country high on the property.

KEYLINE planning envisages firstly the discovery and then the development of every natural renewable resource of the landscape in order to produce a state of balance which will be in conformity with land shape, climate and soil. The basic idea is to make nature assist the farmer instead of his engaging in conflict with nature, to his economic loss.

There was a “balance” a slow rate of change, in the Australian landscape which preserved it from violent change until the early settler altered it and threw it out of balance, eventually causing more or less serious and widespread land deterioration and soil erosion. What the farmer and grazier need is not an unstable landscape but a permanent and improving one.

As indicated earlier, working on land and planning on paper must be performed together as a system, and so a contoured, scaled map of his own property becomes the most fascinating and valuable document a farmer can have.

valleys, primary ridges, main ridges, and secondary valleys, as he named them, was fundamental.

He also recognized that there were individual Keypoints in every primary valley, and that a succession of primary valleys as one moved up the main ridge would have Keypoints at progressively higher levels. He saw that lines for feeder drains, really extensions of the Keylines of the valleys but leading from the high country, could control the run-off from this high country so that no water would be wasted to lower levels before all the high dams were filled. Yeomans called this the Keyline because he believed it would be the key that would unlock every problem on the property. This was a major step forward in thinking about land; it envisaged for the first time the maximum possible development of the water resources of farmland.

In land development the contour map is used for planning in general, as in locating Keypoints, Keylines, and suitable shapes for possible dam sites, singly and in series.

The contour map is primarily a planning map, and although it can be useful for specially recording from time to time work carried out on the property, it is not a substitute for levelling, drain grading, and so on. These works must be carried out separately on the various sites, and in accordance with the needs of each project.

THERE are several other important fundamental geographical factors in land-resources development. There is a relationship between precipitation and water flow, and between soil erosion and water flow.

The location of dam sites, the supply of material for dam building and the location of suitable area for cultivation and irrigation are all dependent upon the past denudation history that placed deep soil forming deposits on the middle slopes.

The most fundamental of natural processes is land denudation. Relentlessly, the elements disintegrate rock surfaces, transport the debris to lower levels and eventually deposit it in the sea. Rain run-off will collect in each primary valley on the upper middle slope and will begin to cut into the soil and erode it away. This is true of many Australian landscapes, especially those cleared for wheat and pasture production, and it is significant that at these water-collecting points, past denudation forces have left soil-forming deposits deeper than elsewhere up or down the slope.

Here again is the recognition that water, land shape and soil deposits combine to suggest a site for a farm dam and protection against loss of both soil and water. Here is another geographical factor fitted to Keyline. This is land appraisal in magnitude at its best, namely land-shape and water-flow being dovetailed into patterns for water collecting and soil deposit utilization.

to convert a reasonably permanent landscape to something very much less so? Australian rivers are now rising higher with floor rains, but they are retaining their water flow and volume for shorter periods than in times past. I think this could be attributed to wrong methods of land clearing and farm management, and also to the quick run-off that comes from roads and streets – a factor not present in early settlement times.

Keyline has an additional contribution to make. Chains of high level Keyline dams, creek dams and other types of dams, together with Keyline irrigation, tree clearing, and hillside tree planting, are lessening the flood water entering our larger rivers. Flood waters in our larger rivers have, these last ten years, become so destructive that the problems of their control are causing acute anxiety to the people of our riverine towns. I am of the opinion that the strategically-planned farm dams of Keyline in increasing abundance on our sloping country must eventually make a major contribution to flood mitigation.

THE system of cultivating land perfected by Yeomans involves another important factor, namely the geometry of Keyline. This is based on the various patterns made by contours on the land, which are consistent to a marked degree for each of the shapes classified in Keyline. Perhaps we can start our explanation this way.

Heavy rain will at times cause water to flow over practically the whole of the land surface, and the movement of water is by the most direct downhill path from the primary ridge to the valley below it. On the contour map the most direct path is at right angles to the contours. This pattern of water flow is illustrated on page …… in Fig. 3.

It will also be seen on the diagram that any abundant runoff rain water will remain for a longer time on the primary valley section than on the primary ridge section. In other words, the land is not “watered” evenly by rainfall which produces run-off – the valleys receive much more than the ridges. The resultant effect in the natural landscape is for the ridges to dry out quickly while the valley remains moist or even wet.

move water in the one direction, is very powerful. For other than rain pasture, this water movement is done with a purpose, namely to spread water in what is called Keyline Pattern Irrigation.

To obtain this pattern of ploughing for Keyline cultivation the chisel plough is used extensively. The action of a chisel plough is simply a scratch type of cultivation which does not invert the top “live” soil and smother it, as is the case with the conventional mouldboard and disk plough. This cultivation by the chisel plough promotes the entry of rain water and air into the soil, and in combination with greater soil depth, increases its fertility.

year, and once each year for the first three years only of development, it has the rather magical property of rapidly increasing the depth and fertility of some of the very poorest soils. It has advantages also on the deeper and richer soils. The whole purpose of Keyline cultivation is to change the critical air moisture relationship within the soil, thus creating a greatly improved soil climate.

Again, by providing a better utilization of moisture on the ridges, the valleys are safeguarded because they are better able to absorb the reduced run-off. This is controlling a water resource scientifically. For similar reasons, the hazard of major soil erosion is eliminated, since the need for purely protective measures is entirely removed – and this of course greatly enhances the value of the whole property. Such is the logic of the geometry of Keyline as discovered by Yeomans.

The implication of the previous paragraph is worth emphasizing again, because the wide and continued application of these Keyline methods first renews and then builds up rapidly and progressively the whole landscape. This by contrast is in open contradiction to the earlier, now out-dated methods of holding the soil by expensive protective structures such as contour terraces and grassed outlets to take water off land. These older methods are based in effect on completely negative attitudes to land development.

THE conception of primary valley and primary ridge, main ridge and secondary valleys, Keypoints, Keylines and the geometry of Keyline, lend themselves in combination to further application.

Since most soils in Australia are lacking in water, it becomes important to make more rainwater penetrate and to sustain within the soil more moisture, thereby extending the growing condition longer than could previously be expected. If this were possible then the first phase of the full development of water resources would be started.

On Yobarnie it has been possible to have dams at three levels, and this is the grandeur of the scheme. Firstly two chains of dams at Keyline levels; secondly another chain at a lower level, starting at a point where a small creek (see top of diagram in Fig. 7) enters the property, thus using water which originates outside and which would run to waste, especially in flood times; and thirdly at points where the excess water flowing from above would leave the property. These last are pumping dams.

This three-tier system of water collection and water flow is an ingenious Keyline device for future farm irrigation prospects.

To the casual observer looking at Figs. 6 and 7, it would appear that rather a large area of the property is covered by water and hence unproductive. But in such a climate as that of Yobarnie, with the probability of long dry spells in both winter and summer, water means money because water makes land development possible and profitable. When all the dams are filled the total area of land covered represents about five per cent of the property. When all this water is used for irrigation about fifty per cent of the property is irrigated effectively, part by part in rotation over the years as circumstances require. The cost of converting one acre of poor land into a good irrigation acre must be weighed against the value the improved acre would have in terms of production. Estimates of the value of irrigated land in Eastern Australia vary greatly. Without capital improvements and the annual cost of adding water, prices vary from two hundred pounds to six hundred pounds per acre and even higher, and available water costs about thirty shillings per acre foot.

value added by Keyline construction can be made from its animal carrying capacity. Yobarnie and Nevallan this last winter carried one bullock to two acres, and now that the whole plan is approaching completion and with the on-coming hot weather and the consequent good growth of irrigated pasture, they are expected to carry three bullocks per irrigated acre. That speaks for itself. Furthermore, these properties are in close proximity to good markets.

Another rather important aspect of Keyline thinking, which will not be fully described at present, is the manner of designing and constructing dams. The special construction of the dam is an integral part of the development of the water resources of the property. Keyline dams, which are placed at the highest point in the primary valleys where water can be stored economically, invariably have land below the level of the bottom of the dam, and this area can be watered quickly and at low cost by Keyline pattern irrigation.

The system of Keyline pattern irrigation depends for its effectiveness firstly on the proper location and design of the dam. Beneath the wall of the dam, at its lowest level, there should be a pipeline containing a screened inlet on the inside and a valve at the back of the dam, so that the water can be turned on and off like a kitchen tap. Actually, the pipe is laid early in the construction of the dam wall, and the wall is built over it. The diameter of the pipe is important; it should be of such a size that it will provide sufficient flow to empty the dam in a long dry period when irrigation is being undertaken. Too small a size of pipeline would not irrigate quickly enough to use up all the water of a large storage as it is required. Our present experience in Keyline indicates that an eight to ten inch diameter pipe is adequate and efficient.

By this means the dam wall is strengthened, and any subsequent likely failure is eliminated because the wall is self maintaining.

Secondly, Keyline pattern irrigation depends on the location, design and construction of the irrigation drain.

When the lockpipe valve is opened, water enters a drain placed to receive it. This drain has been constructed at a set grade in the down-land direction. When irrigation commences, the water is blocked in the drain with an ingenious and easily manipulated stop. Yeomans has called it an irrigation flag. This flag forces the water to build up and flow over the lower lip of the drain along a selected portion of its length. The word “flag” may be puzzling, but because the stopper is made of fabric the name flag is more appropriate than stopper. The conventional title would be check dam or drain stop.

In Keyline pattern irrigation, three or more irrigation flags are used. While one flag is operating and holding water back, the second flag is placed in position further along the drain in order to receive the water after the first flag has been removed, thereby causing a spill-over in a new place. A third flag can be put in at the same time further along the drain, or alternatively, it may be put into a full drain at any particular spot during irrigation.

A similar system is used where dams have had to be placed low in the landscape, and there is not a sufficient area of land below them for flow irrigation. Then a medium-head, large-flow-volume pump lifts the water from the lockpipe valve to the irrigation drain, which has been placed higher up and designed to irrigate a prepared area below it.

In the determination to catch all the excess flow by lower dams, the combination of pumping and gravity-flow irrigation completes the utilization of all water that can possibly be collected.

What does all this amount to in the twenty-six-inch rainfall country of New South Wales? For example, gravity irrigation, as described above, may be done five to nine times a season or whenever necessary. Surely here is the very bogey of flood and drought laid forever. Likewise full security is guaranteed for any farming and stocking policy, and at very reasonable costs.

training of personnel and the finding and developing of the right type of machinery to do the various jobs efficiently and economically. Farming in the past has not always been doing the job in the best way, but a choice of several ways and accepting the least disadvantageous. Unfortunately, there comes a time when a whole new system has to be adopted and its costs met; but then there is the added cost of amending the earlier work. The long background of previous efforts to find a solution to the problem of land planning and development is the present guarantee of the rightness of Keyline thinking and of Keyline techniques.

Many of our earlier ideas and practices seemed right at the time, and many people were using them as well as ourselves. It was not that we did not know what we were doing. There was plenty of knowledge and experience among us, yet something was wanting. Farm and pasture properties in Australia are seldom near full development and much land still awaits even the beginning of development; so the search went on, often waiting a year or more to see if a project would prove successful.

One clear idea emerged – that if land was to be made better and new wealth brought to rural industries, then a whole new attitude to working with the soil had to be forthcoming, and new, economical techniques had to be established. What these attitudes and techniques would be was not so clear at the beginning.

mining and business, second from his wide range of practical experiments and his mistakes as a former enthusiastic conservationist, and finally from the full development of Keyline, that it is must plain good business for people on the land to follow Yeomans and the course this book so earnestly urges. You may disagree with his theories and ideas as much as you like, but if you let your disagreements be founded on real knowledge and understanding of his work, then your property will surely benefit. Furthermore, developing land in this way is an attraction to people going on the land, since knowledge, experience and hard yet pleasant work not only provide a very good living, but one eminently satisfying.

In the late 1930s the Department of Geography of the University of Sydney decided to make a major land-use survey of the Tamworth region of New South Wales, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, through the University, provided the money for the execution of the work. During the course of the survey I became very interested in the problems of soil erosion, which were receiving very little attention in this country at the time, although country people must have been aware of their seriousness.

During our discussion with farmers as the survey proceeded, we persuaded one farmer to try out some of our ideas on erosion prevention. Now, during this period much soil-erosion literature was coming forward from the U.S.A. It appeared that the main purport of their schemes and devices was to catch surplus water and drain it away off the farm to some place where it could not do any harm – a quite elaborate and expensive procedure. It was evident to us, however, that in the dry climate of New South Wales it was necessary to keep as much water as possible on the land. We devised simple structures to this end and met with some success, provided the farmer would maintain the shallow drains year by year.