MONDAY, 11th DECEMBER, 1916 (At Ajana.)

Present: J. O. Giles, Esq., Chairman. B. L. Clarkson, Esq., H. H. Paynter, Esq. F. E. Venn, Esq.

FREDERICK ALBERT PORTER, Farmer, Ajana, sworn and examined:

7192. To the CHAIRMAN: I have been here for five years, but have had no previous experience. I was formerly an engine-driver. I hold 3,069 acres in conjunction with a partner. Nine hundred and ninety acres are first class C.P. land and 2,069 are grazing lease. I speak for Porter and Lodge, who are living here. We have 1,100 acres of first class cultivable land in that holding and 200 acres od second class land. The balance is sandplain which is unfit for cultivation. The stony ground might run a sheep to 30 acres, but there is no poison there. I have one good well of water, and am two miles distant from the railway. A thousand acre block was originally 16s. an acre but was reduced to 11s., while the grazing lease was reduced from 8s. to 7s. I t is gravelly, scrubby stuff with short tamma. It is classified on the plans as first class land but it is nothing of the kind. We have 3000 acres cleared, and the cost of clearing is £1 an acre. there are 1,000 acres fenced and subdivided into four paddocks with eight miles of sheep-proof fencing. I am a married man with four children, three of whom attend school. Our nearest doctor is 32 miles away in Northampton. I have an iron, hessian and weatherboard house containing two rooms and a kitchen. I have a stable. My implement shed was blown down and I have had no time yet to put it up again. I have seven working horses and a cow and 26 pigs and a pony. Our total capital was

£150, put in by the partnership. The original partner pulled out and my present partner bought in. We borrowed £506 from the Agricultural Bank. Up to March we owed the I.A.B. £400, and that would be, roughly, £500 to date. By next February we shall owe to outside creditors, including machinery accounts, about £300. I so not know how much first class land exists in the Ajana agricultural area. The prospect of obtaining water are fairly good. Dams are out of the question. The water in the wells is drinkable, but the depth of the wells varies. For instance, I struck water at 11 feet, but others have gone down 80 feet. There is practically no poison in the district. it was opened for agriculture at the end of 1910, and a railway was provided in March, 1913.

7193. To Mr CLARKSON: I have 300 acres under crop but no fallow. I have tried fallow. In my first year I had fallow. I had 160 acres cleared and only put half in and got a 17-bushel average over the 80 acres. I ploughed the land in August while it was wet and cultivated it four times and ploughed it four inches or five inches deep. There is no doubt whatever about the value of fallow in an ordinary season. I had fallow last year in which went 14 bushels. The other averaged about six. My crop also suffered from rust. I had Bunyip on the fallow but it was not affected, while Bunyip in the unfallowed land was affected. I had a crop of 17 bushels over 80 acres. This year it will go barely nine bushels over 270 acres. To pay actual expenses of putting in and taking off a crop and allowing myself 9s. a day and also for depreciation and interest on the capital it would take 30s. 4d. to put in and take off the whole crop. I work 14 or 15 hours every day, Sunday included. I sow 50lbs. of seed tot he acre easily and as low as 40lbs. to the acre. In the past I have sown as much as 1½ bushels of seed and 56lbs. of super to the acre. The early wheats emphatically do the best here. The trouble we experience is the wheats we know will grow successfully but they will not stand up. I have an eight-furrowed State Implement Works disc plough, and I work six horses with seven discs. A fair day's work is six acres; with a 13-disc drill, I do 15 acres. With a 5-feet Deering harvester I am doing 10 acres a day, but I am working two teams while the weather is favourable, but a man would not ordinarily average more than eight acres with two teams. I am not in a position to express an opinion on bulk handling, but I consider that the protective tariff on machinery and other commodities that a farmer has to buy should be entirely abolished. If my present liabilities were funded and ten years given for their repayment, if I had the proceeds of my present crop, I think I should be able to prosper, but at the same time I would not prefer such a system to the present arrangement.

7194. To Mr PAYNTER: I had rust last year. I pickle but do not grade my wheat. I have not tried artificial grasses. I have seen vegetables in certain places doing very well indeed, but not every place is successfully watered. I planted six fruit trees this year but only have one left. I have just started pigs. Poultry are profitable and, apart from the market value, we live largely on eggs. Periodically I employ labour, paying 30s. a week and keep, but to make a decent living a man should hold between 3,000 and 4,000 acres so as to enable him to run stock. I have done 300 acres myself two years running without fallow. I dry plough it and had it in in the first week in June. Co-operation would be an excellent thing, but nothing in this direction has been done so far to date, but the germ is beginning to be