Part 5

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repayment I could carry on without further assistance, and in fact I would prefer it, because a man can get better facilities from the merchants.

6494. To Mr. VENN: We have good grass land here and in summer we have native grasses and herbage. I am awaiting the opportunity to fence the whole of my land and then I shall go in for sheep. The dogs are not much of a nuisance. Mr Lee Steere's man poisons a lot of dogs and we shall do the same. It would be a good scheme for the Government to supply deserving settlers with breeding ewes provided they enabled us to fence also. So far as water is concerned, there is no difficulty. We get good wells of water everywhere with sinking, but we must fence against the dogs and the rabbits. As I have not got a fence I cannot keep a cow, but with fencing I could have both cows and breeding ewes, say, 60 of the latter for a start.

6495. To the CHAIRMAN: The Agricultural Bank has dealt very fairly with me excepting in the matter of the fencing. They think that we are too far east but that is a mistake. There is good land 60 miles east of this and even at Warrida there are good crops. As to my experience of the I.A.B on the whole I cannot complain, but they would not give me a harvester last year and if they had I could have paid them off; for want of it I lost 200 or 300 bags of Alpha. This year, however, they have allowed me for a harvester.

6496. Have you been assisted by the departmental experts with advice as to the vest methods to pursue? —Some of us wrote to the Department of Agriculture and we got a letter from Mr Sutton asking us about fallow. What we asked for was for a man to investigate the conditions out here.

6497. With your present experience, do you think you would be able to establish yourself successfully? — Certainly if they liberalised matters a little more. The alternative to that would be to drive us out of it.

6498. To Mr. VENN: I think that dairying would be a valuable side line if established here. Dairying was started in the Murray country 28 years ago and the locality is just as dry as it is here, but the industry had the effect of pulling them along. A creamery could be established in connection with the dairying and both of them would go well with pig raising. When the cream was separated it could be sent to a central factory, say, at Perenjori.

6499. Those who have them here seem to do well with their cows? Yes, that is so. The branch association discussed matters which they desired to be brought before the Royal Commission at a meeting held last Sunday, and the result of their deliberations have been set down and are as follows. (Taken down as manuscript.) I think it would be a good thing if there were an agricultural college in the district from which diplomas could be arranged. At Morawa they got up a petition to the Government to have one there, but wherever it is it should be somewhere along this railway line. Later on grain will be coming in from the eastward.

6500. By Mr. CLARKSON: When you say that five years exemption from payment of rent should be granted, do you consider that five years period should be tacked on to the end of the term?—The first five years are the main struggle of the farmer here. He goes through a period too harassing for words. I, for instance, have had to send my two youngest children away from here, and if I throw up the sponge now others will follow my example. Yet we can grow crops if we have the needful assistance. I certainly think the first five years should be altogether free from payment of any sort.

(The witness retired)

6501. To the CHAIRMAN: I came here six years ago and had previous farming experience in the North-Eastern farming district of Victoria. I did not inspect the land before taking it up, but obtained it from reports I heard of the district and took it up in Perth from the plan. The description on the plan was quite correct and satisfactory, and when I saw the land I was quite satisfied with it. I took up 1,512 acres, 1,000 of which was forest and the balance samphire flats, which is not wheat country. It was 14s 6d when I took it up, but it has now been reduced to 11s 6d. I am eight and a half miles east from the railway. I have 400 acres cleared and have erected about three miles of fencing, but have no paddocks. My water supply is a well, but it is brackish water, although there is a good supply, just about suitable for stock. Rain water forms my domestic supply. I am a married man with five children, and two of them can attend school. One has left school. My house is of canvas with an iron roof. I have a bush stable, but not sufficient shed accommodation for machinery. I have a set of implements and six working horses, but no other live stock except poultry. When I came on to the land I had £300 capital. I had been in Perth for some years after arriving from Victoria. I borrowed £350 from the Agricultural Bank and have been assisted by the I.A.B., and I estimate I owe the latter about £300. My experience of the Agricultural Bank has been very satisfactory, and of the Board satisfactory so far, but the Agricultural Department has not been of any assistance to settlers here in the way of giving advice as to the best methods to pursue. The annual rainfall I consider to be about 12 inches, eight or nine of which fall in the growing season.

6502. To Mr CLARKSON: I have 300 acres under crop, 100 acres of which was fallow. There is a difference in the look of the crop and the fallow is at least three bushels better. Previously I had no experience of fallow. I sow 60lbs. of seed to the acre and 60lbs. of super. The highest average yield I have had was 15½ bushels over about 50 acres. That was not over the whole of the crop. My highest yield last year was 12 bushels over 280 acres and this year I think the crop will go 12 bushels. The cost of putting in and taking off a crop, including carting, I should estimate would be two and a half bags or, say, seven and a half bushels. I find the early wheats do best. I use a six furrow disc plough and six horses. They do six acres a day. I have a 15 disc drill which does 15 acres and a six foot harvester which does six acres. I do no think that the use of larger machinery would greatly reduce the cost. We have not enough area, as a matter of fact, cleared for big implements. on a bigger scale two small implements would be preferable to one large. Bulk handling would reduce costs. Our idea was to erect pens on the farm to store the