there was not much difference in the crop. The highest average yield I had was 27 bushels last year over the whole crop of 100 acres. I had 820 acres in altogether last year and over the whole it would average 16 bushels. I estimate the yield this year at 15 bushels, but the crops this year are very deceiving. I should think that ploughing with a tractor, as I do, would cost about 25s. per acre to put in and take off the crop.

6516. What is the difference as between the tractor and horses?—Last year it cost me 4s. per acre with a tractor, but kerosene was cheaper than it is to-day. With horses it would have cost me 7s. and then they would have to be fed. I plough with a 10-furrow Shearer. I believe in big machinery and consider it is the only way in which costs can be reduced. I use a Rumley tractor and do 20 furrows with it. I ploughed 25 acres a day on the average last year. I have not put her on drills yet, merely ploughing and harvesting. She pulls two harvesters and could pull two 8-feet easily, but I have not had a proper test yet. However, my men are beginning to know the machines now and they are far more economical than horses. You can set your machines and can travel 3¼ miles an hour. You can start earlier in the morning and go on later at night than you can with horses.

6517. If you were doing it with horses and a 6ft. machine and covering seven or eight acres a day, what do you think you would do with that same machine worked by the tractor?—Probably you would do 20 acres with the two machines as against 14 or 16 with horses, but that is only a rough guess. The results are better because the pull is a straight pull. I sow about 80lbs. of super. to the acre and find that the early wheats do best. Federation and Yandilla King gave the best yield in the wet year. Bunyip seems to do well here also. Bulk handling would reduce costs, undoubtedly. I myself would cart the grain in tanks to the siding. The duty on machinery should be taken off and what puzzles me is why we do not build our own machines in Australia. No use seems to be made of the abundance of iron ore. Why should we not manufacture instead of importing the finished article from America?

6518. That is why the duty is on farming machines?—Well, let us take it off until we start manufacturing.

6519. To Mr. PAYNTER: My crops have had no disease. I pickle and grade my wheat. I have not tried fodder crops, but I have a garden and no fruit trees. I keep pigs and feed them on seconds. I keep them only for my own use, and the same with poultry. I pay £2 10s. and £2 5s. a week wages and keep to my employees, but the men that I have are good men and I know them. Some days they work from daylight till dark as work presses. If I find a man will not assist me I will get someone else who will. Some days there is little to do and on others there is a rush of a work, and at hay time and harvest time they work longer hours. I think the minimum quantity that a man should hold should be 3,000 acres, and one man with a team should do 400 to 500 acres a year with fallow, and some help at harvest and seed time. He certainly ought to do 400 acres. Co-operation amongst farmers seems an impossibility. They never can work with one another. So far as the land regulations and conditions are concerned, my opinion is that the land is not of the quality that is represented in the office at Home. If I had known what I know now I certainly would not have come out to Australia to farm.

6520. By Mr. VENN: Have you gone in for sheep raising?—Yes, but I could not buy any more sheep just now. In my first year here, 1911, I put in a small crop of 30 acres, but it did not come to much on account of the dry season. There was no railway here then. My second year was not a bad year, although I had to cart material 40 miles from Carnamah, so I knocked off and went on clearing. The third year was a fairly good season. The railway came then and I put in 500 acres of crop, but I never got anything out of it. I intend to go in for sheep. I have country I was going to fallow, but I am not going to now. I will get sheep instead. I have plenty of water and no poison. There are 400 acres of low scrub country which would be good for sheep in summer.

6521. Do you think it would be a wise procedure if the Government supplied deserving farmers with breeding ewes?—Yes; that is what they ought to do. Two years ago I was offered sheep by Mr. Reid at Mingenew on the hire system, and could still get them from him. The cows here milk well on the natural grasses; nevertheless I do not think it is a dairying district. The dry spell is too long. The cows will milk all the year round as there is any amount of good dry feed, but they do not do as well as in the winter, when they get rolling rat in a certain class of country, sandplain. The York gum country is useless. I am paying rent on 2,000 acres of forest land that is worth nothing at all without improvements.

6522. By Mr. CLARKSON: Sheep will do better on brackish water than horses?—Yes. I killed a bell wether the other day that went 80lbs. I keep 50 sheep for my own use. They do very well here. I have sandplain, with self-sown oats and wheat all over it. I use the tractor for carrying work and I brought 200 bags into the siding on it. Where the wheels of a wagon would cut six inches into the ground the tractor does not go down at all. I have tried it clearing land and it is a success. I cannot give you the exact cost of clearing with a tractor as yet.

6523. I am informed that in clearing land of trees the custom is to fasten a wire rope three or four feet up the bough of a tree?—There may be something in that.

6524. By the CHAIRMAN: Do you think you will be able to establish yourself successfully?—My grievance is that we do not get cash for our produce. This pool business of keeping the wheat back and not giving an advance against it is wrong in principle, as you have your bills to meet and you have the produce for which you have already paid cash, practically. It seems an extraordinary proceeding in a country like this. I have wheat stacked now, and I do not know what to do with it. I also buy other wheat. Last year I bought for Ockerby and Co., and I do not know what to do with it. If they would give cash for our produce and if possible give us breeding ewes on extended terms and a fair price for our wheat, we could certainly make a do of it.

                                                    (The witness retired.)
                                                            ------------