Hi All
Yes I can see Richards point . But land mass versus population size can be a little misleading . I can only comment on what I see here . If you drive out to North Western Victoria .. 6 hours from Melbourne .. you'll see an endless horizon of dry , semi arid land . They grow cereals , wheat . Go further inland and its about 1 sheep per acre .. further inland ,then it's 1 sheep per 5 acres .. the land is sooo barren . We have highly leached soils here .. that means little nutrients in the ground . It's a miracle how they grow anything out there .... but they do , to varying success and a lot of failure also , they are wholly dependant on the unreliable rainfall . Modern machinery and fertilisers pushes things along .
Check out Tims Wiki page :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Flannery