Men with a team of work horses pulling a roller which is used for clearing scrub in the South Australian Mallee lands.

The mallee lands are bounded to the north and west by the River Murray and extend into Victoria. A largely flat land it was originally covered with a dense scrub of mallee trees. These trees are a species of eucalyptus and are notable for the multiple stems growing from a woody underground stem or lignotuber. It is estimated that 80% of the mallee has now been cleared for grain growing and sheep farming.

Initially mallee trees were cut down in the process of land clearance: the underground stems that remained sprouted innumerable new shoots; these could be burnt but the underground stem remained and continued to produce new growth.

In the late 19th century a process called mullenising was developed. This involved dragging a heavy roller over roughly cleared ground to crush young shoots; the field was then burnt, and a spiked log was run over the ground, and a crop of wheat sown. The next season, the stubble and any mallee regrowth was again burnt, and eventually the mallee died, though stumps remained underground. The development of the stump jump plough in 1876 allowed the ploughing and sowing of the land despite the many stumps.