Endnotes
1. The 'northern plains' in this study refers to the bioregion of the Victorian Riverina that lies west of the Campaspe River.
2. The delineation of the study area as part of a semi-arid climate zone is based on MC Peel, BL Finlayson and TA McMahon, 'Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification', Hydrology and earth system sciences, vol. 11, 2007, pp. 1633-44. The updated Köppen-Geiger climate map is also available online.
3. DW Meinig, On the margins of the good earth: the South Australian wheat frontier, 1869-1884, Monograph Series of the Association of American Geographers no. 2, Rand McNally, Chicago, 1962 (reprinted by Rigby Limited, Adelaide, 1976); RL Heathcote, Back of Bourke: a study of land appraisal and settlement in semi-arid Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1965; JM Powell, The public lands of Australia Felix: settlement and land appraisal in Victoria 1834-91 with special reference to the Western Plains, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1970.
4. Based on Aboriginal language boundaries in ID Clark, Aboriginal languages and clans: an historical atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800-1900, Monash Publications in Geography no. 37, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Melbourne, 1990, p. 388.
5. Colin Pardoe, for instance, suggests that at the end of the glacial epoch 7000 years ago, Aboriginal people on the River Murray developed a fundamentally different social order: C Pardoe, 'Riverine, biological and cultural evolution in southeastern Australia', Antiquity, vol. 69, no. 265, 1995, pp. 696-713.
6. Rainfall was not officially recorded at weather stations on the northern plains until 1881. Information about rainfall before that time has been gleaned from anecdotal evidence contained in written accounts and from rainfall records kept at Bendigo from 1862.
7. The term 'squatter' first applied to those pastoralists who took possession of land before legislature was introduced in 1836. It is adopted in this article because it was widely used in the literature of the time.
8. Sir Stephen Roberts, History of Australian land settlement, 2nd edition, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1968, p. 169.
9. Soaks were shallow depressions excavated into soft sandy sediments above a slowly permeable clay subsoil. They were used to catch rain, or were sometimes dug to tap into the water table.
10. JO Randell, Pastoral settlement in Northern Victoria, vol. 2, The Campaspe District, Chandos Publishing Company, Burwood, Victoria, 1982, p. 549.
11. D Munro, Letter dated 17 August 1842, ML A6936-2, Manuscript Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library New South Wales.
12. Randell, The Campaspe District, pp. 551-2.
13. PROV, VA 538 Department of Crown Lands and Survey, VPRS 5920/P0 Pastoral Run Papers, sheet 688, pastoral run no. 1083 (microfiche copy of VPRS 5359).
14. ibid.
15. E Curr, Recollections of squatting in Victoria, 2nd edition, Melbourne University Press, 1965, p. 86.
16. Letter from Charles Browning Hall, 6 September 1853, in Letters from Victorian pioneers, edited by CE Sayers, Currey O'Neil, South Yarra, Victoria, p. 268 (originally edited by TF Bride for the Trustees of the Public Library, Museums, and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1898).
17. 'Boort revisited - Mr Godfrey, the pioneer, interviewed', Boort Standard, 25 September 1892.
18. Quoted in Johann Louis Krefft, 'Narrative of the exploring expedition led by W. Blandowski to the Lower Murray and Darling Rivers 1856-7', Gerard Krefft Manuscript and Pictorial Collection c. 1856-1895, ML A268 CY 754, Manuscripts Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
19. 'Dummies' were nominal selectors acting on behalf of someone else to apply for land or to fulfil residency conditions.
20. Based on run information in R Spreadborough & H Anderson (comps), Victorian squatters, Red Rooster Press, Ascot Vale, Victoria, 1983.
21. Bendigo, which has a median annual rainfall of 550.7 mm, received 974.6 mm in 1870, and 715.3 mm in 1871.
22. Below-average rainfall was recorded in Bendigo in the years 1876, 1877, 1878 and 1879. At the nearest rainfall station at Echuca with a median annual rainfall of 423.2 mm, 376.7 mm in 1881 and 306.8 mm in 1884 were recorded.
23. PROV, VA 538 Department of Crown Lands and Survey, VPRS 625/P0 Land Selection Files, sections 19 and 20, 1869, Unit 162, 9470/19.20 and Unit 577, 46016/19.20.
24. Victorian Year Book, Government Printer, Melbourne, for the years 1877-78 and 1882-83.
25. HA Hunt, Results of rainfall observations made in Victoria 1840-1910 including all available rainfall totals from 1,114 stations; together with maps and diagrams, Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, 1911?, p. xxxvi.
26. Victorian Year Book, 1877-78 and 1882-83.
27. Instrumental orientations regard the environment merely as resources awaiting current or future development for material ends, and territorial orientations frame the environment as property to be owned or at least controlled. Se E Cohen in RL Heathcote, 'Manifest destiny, mirage and Mabo: contemporary images of the rangelands', Rangeland journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 1994, pp. 156-7.
28. PROV, VA 2266 Closer Settlement Board (previously known as Lands Purchase and Management Board 1905-1918), VPRS 5714/P0 Closer (and Soldier) Settlement Files, Unit 1130, 'Bamawm Estate'.
29. ibid.
30. Information on the Waterman family is drawn from PROV, VPRS 5714/P0, Unit 1559, Item 4489/12 'Ballendella'; National Archives of Australia, Australian Imperial Force, Base Records Office, 'Waterman, Harold: Service Number-11943' and First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920, B2455/1; The Age, 26 June 1918.
31. RL Heathcote, 'Summary and conclusions: the role of perception in the desertification process', in Perception of desertification, ed. RL Heathcote, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 1980.
32. RL Heathcote, 'Drought mitigation in Australia: reducing the losses but not removing the hazard', Great Plains quarterly, vol. 6, 1986, p. 227.