Part 5

Page 285
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This transcription is complete

—they are much more numerous than ever. We are also badly in want of telephonic communication. I sent away for twine and shall know nothing about it for another three weeks, whereas if there was telephone communication I should know at once how long it would take to reach me.

Joseph John Aguilar, Farmer, Latham, sworn and examined:

6416. To the Chairman: I have been here for five years, and was previously farming in the Northam, Williams and Serpentine districts. I took up 4,321 acres and inspected before I selected, but since then after burning, the poison has come all over it. I have paid five shillings an acre for it. It is fair average grazing country and forest in patches. I have plenty for agricultural purposes. I think of clearing the country and going in for stock. There are 2,000 acres of sandplain, 500 acres of lake country, and the rest is forest. I have about three miles carting to the railway. I have cleared 500 acres and fenced 2,000 with two barbed wires and one plain wire, and the fence is ready for rabbit netting. My water supply is good and yields 2,500 gallons a day, the well being 39ft deep. It is on the sandplain. It gave a thousand gallons at first, then I put it down to 102 ft. and got 2,000 gallons. The water came up in the bore hole. I am a single man and have a small house and stable for 10 horses made of bush. I have no machinery shed, but I am going to build one this summer. I have a necessary set of implements and 10 good working horses, 18 horses altogether, and five milking cows. I had £1,400 capital when I came here and went on to the Agricultural Bank for clearing to the extent of £500, but have had no assistance from the I.A.B., and I have no other liabilities.

6417. To Mr. Clarkson: I put no crop in this year, but the year before last I had 250 acres and 110 acres last year in crop but got nothing off it. Last year I cut it for hay and the rest got burnt. I intended to clear the country and crop it for a year or two and then stock it. If the crop had not been burnt off it would have yielded from 8 to 10 bushels. It takes 10 bushels to pay expenses. There appears to be soda in the soil; the crop goes off so quickly. I dry-plough it in summer and get a fair percentage of rain on it. I ploughed it five inches deep. It was mostly forest land.

6418. To Mr. Paynter: I did put in some grasses but the season was too bad. Last year there was too much summer rain. So far as the present land laws are concerned I think the rent should be exempted for a term. All that I have got for my work is the machinery and the stock. Poison grubbing has cost me £200 already. I have had no reduction in the price of my rent on account of the land carrying poison, but I was thinking of trying to get it put under the Poison Act. I have four different kinds of poison under my land, kite leaf, narrow leaf, and York road and bullock poison. The last names has a round leaf. I should be satisfied if I could get my rent reduced for one year.

(The Witness Retired.)

Winter Lidstone-Aspley, Farmer, Latham, sworn and examined:

6419. To the Chairman: I came here in 1909 and I still have a farm in Victoria, but I came here so as to get more land for my sons. We have 1,000 acres between us, practically all forest country, and it adjoins the railway station. I inspected the land before selecting it. The rainfall was marked 15 inches on the plan, but actually it is between 11 and 12 inches. Then there are thunderstorms in summer. I should think the winter rainfall would be about eight inches. We have cleared 500 acres and about 800 acres are enclosed in a fence. Our water supply is a 600 yard dam but it is not permanent, and when it goes dry we resort to the Government well. We had to cart our water when excavating the dam out from Coorow, and the dam cost us from £2 6d. a yard. We have a bag house at the present, a bush stable, but no accommodation for our machinery. We had about £500 when we started, some horses and a dray which we brought over with us. We borrowed £315 from the Agricultural Bank and we also went on the Industries Assistance Board. We do not owe them more than £100 and if they have sold all our wheat we should be off the board altogether.

6420. To Mr. Clarkson: We have 300 acres in crop, but no fallow. We have 130 acres in fallow now. Of course I have had previous experience of fallow in Victoria. We use a bushel of seed to the acre and 40 lbs. of super. The highest average yield for the whole crop that we have had up here was about 12 bushels, but I cannot say that is a fair average for the district; possibly it might be. Last year was an exceptional year, and our average was then about 12 bushels. I prefer early wheats. We have put in Gluyas, Baroota Wonder and Federation, which I consider to be the best varieties. Bunyip is a hard crop to take off.

6421. Gluyas, so far as we have seen, shows the best results in this part of the State. How many bags at, say, 10s. a bag ought it to take to pay the expense of putting in and taking off your crop? - I have not calculated it out, but I should say abut 12 bushels. You cannot plough and put in your crop for much less then 36s. We used a six-furrow plough and generally did four to five acres a day. I never handled the horses myself; my son does that work. With a 13 drill we have done as much as 19 acres in a day with two teams and no stops. With one team 14 acres would be a fair day's work. We have a Federal harvester and we were using a Mitchell before. If we had the power, that is, larger machinery, it would tend to a reduction in costs and so also would bulk handling by reason of the excessive price of bags.

6422. Have you given any consideration to the tariff from the farmer's point of view? - In the past I assisted Graham Berry, Syme and Mauger. I was a protectionist then, and as a Victorian believed in Victorian manufacture, but in ordering a drill from Nicholson and Morrow, through George Wills & Co., I found there were several pieces in the machinery that should not have gone out of the factory owing to the flaws they showed. When we complained they told us to make claim on the railways. That was one of the things that put me against protection, when I saw that after all the years that Victoria has had protection she has not sent out as good stuff—