MATTHEW JAMES FARRELL, Farmer, Perenjori, sworn and examined:

6525. To the CHAIRMAN: I came here eight years ago looking for land and took this up. We (Farrell Bros.) we the first to take land up here and we wanted it for a horse run as we were contracting on the Midland line. With the exception of three years on the Eastern Goldfields I have been farming all my life, the last time in Bendigo. I took up 1,600 acres here, of which 140 acres were sandplain. The price is 10s. an acre and the land is five miles from the railway west. I have here 400 acres and fenced 800 in one block. I have put down several bores without success. One of them was 1,500 yards, which I excavated myself, and it cost me about 9d. a yard. I am a married man with three children too young to go to school. We are well sticked with implements and have three 7ft. harvesters, two 12-disc ploughs and cultivators, and we have 32 draught horses. I have built a house on my brother's land, where the water is. There is no stable for the horses, but I have a shed for the wheat and a bough shed for machinery. We shifted from Mingenew down here 18 months ago.

6526. To Mr CLARKSON: I have 180 acres of crop and 50 acres were fallow, which looked better than the rest but the storm bashed it down; nevertheless, I think fallow would give better results. The highest yield in any one year was last year, when I got 20 bushels over 135 acres. I have Federation in this year, but only expect 12 bushels an acre off 120 acres. I use a bushel of seed and 30lbs. of super to the acre, but last year I could not get any. It takes about three bags to pay the expenses of putting in and taking off a crop. I use a 12-disc plough with eight and 10 horses, and do about 10 acres a day. There is an 8ft. 6in. cultivator, which does 15 to 18 acres a day, a 17-drill, which does 22 acres, and a 7ft. harvester, which does about 10 acres a day. Bags are a terrible item to the farmer and bulk handling would reduce costs, in this direction particularly. All the farmers' implements should come in free of duty, as the expense of the machinery itself is already too great. For instance, I paid £130 last year for a harvester.

6527. To Mr PAYNTER: There was so much rain last season that we had a blight. I pickle but do not grade my wheat, nor have I tried to grow fodder crops, but vegetables grow well here. I paid £2 10s. a week wages and keep this year and men generally work about nine hours daily. Every man wants in this district at least 2,000 acres and ought to crop 500. Six hundred acres would be a maximum he should be expected to plough. If I had my time over again I would not take up land under the present conditions. It costs too much before a man gets anything off it in clearing, fencing and other improvements.

6528. To Mr Venn: It is the best of grazing country round here and in the running country the grass is at the present time as high as a table. It has been rung for five or six years and there is plenty of salt bush on it. I intend to go in for sheep and I think I will have another try with bores as soon as the crop is off. Most of the people in this district have been lucky in striking water. We put down eight bores and struck only stock water. I have had no experience of dairying here.

6529. To the CHAIRMAN: My country is salmon and gimlet with a bit of York gum. If you let a fire go through it, suckers become a trouble but if you ring-bark it you have no trouble with suckers. The most profitable method is to ring-bark first and then the salmon gum will burn right to the roots. It costs 22s. 6d. to cleat. I and my brothers were share farming at Mingenew for five years for Mr G. J. Gooch. My average in what while share farming there was about 15 bushels throughout.

6530. What difference do you think there would be between the average there and here?— I do not think any difference. In fact, I think this country is ahead of that. My brother had crops there but mine here stripped better than his. The difference in the rainfall is about one inch. I think farming would be a success here if combined with stock. At the present time there is a vast body if feed going to waste here for wasn't of feeding it off.

(The witness retired.)

JOSEPH O'DEA, Butcher and Farmer, Perenjori, sworn and examined:

6531. To the CHAIRMAN: I have been in this district 2½ years and hold 1,000 acres of C.P. land, 500 acres of which is forest. I have been farming all my life in Victoria although more in the dairying industry and fattening stock. I paid 11s. for the land, which is 1¼ miles from the railway. I have 235 acres under crop; 100 acres are cut down and I have no fencing. There is a good water supply, consisting of a well 53½ feet deep. It is splendid water. I am married, with one child. I have no house on the farm at all and no stable, no machinery shed. I rent a property alongside the railway station and I rent a shed as well. Actually I live in the township. I had a little capital—about £100—when I started and borrowed £235 from the Agricultural Bank, but nothing from the I.A.B. I am just on the death knock of getting a loan.

6532. To Mr CLARKSON: I have 77 acres of crop on another man's farm. Last year I had 83 acres under crop but it was put in late and returned only nine bushels per acre. this year I think the crop will go 12 bushels. A man required 10 bushels to pay the expenses of putting in and taking off a crop with wheat at 10s. a bag. I have not gone into the subject very carefully but should think that bulk handling ought to reduce costs.

6533. To Mr PAYNTER: The land laws are encouraging enough and the land is cheap enough, if you get the right man on it, but it is not every man who makes a success of it. What I should want would be £300 to clear 300 acres of forest country.

6534. To Mr VENN: The prospects of dairying here are good. I have cattle myself but with a few dairying cows the proposition ought to be a payable one. When the cows are fate there is a big market. The best reared on a farm when 12 months old is worth £4 to £5. I can show you cows at the present moment that are worth £6 per head. The cows run on the natural grasses and every farmer should have cows to help him make the farm pay. But it would be impossible to send milk down to a creamery from here, but if a man had decent cows and a small separator he should make things pay very well for his cash would come in every week and his young stock are meantime growing up. A number of settlers here want sheep, but I do not favour them on account of the dingoes, and they must have better fences than