who has been trying to buy it for the last three years.

7873. You appear to have made money out of farming?—Well, when I came to the district I took up 600 acres and cleared it myself and got money from the Agricultural Bank and afterwards from the National Bank, but I have gone back again to the Agricultural Bank. This other property, named "Crickside," was in the hands of the bank for some time, as I purchased it more or less as a gamble, but I have had fairly good returns. My overdraft is £900 from the Agricultural Bank and my outside creditors total about £1,000. Still, after this harvest, I shall not owe very much.

7874. By Mr. PAYNTER: What area do you crop annually?—About 500 acres. I took the other farm over in 1914, in July, and the war, as you know, broke out in August and labour became difficult to procure. It is not all fallow. I have cleared 100 acres of new land. I use 80lbs. of super to the acre and from 40lbs. to 1 bushel of seed.

7875. Do you attach importance to the variety of seed and its quality?—The seed should be well graded. I pickle mine as well. My highest yield off some of the land was 40 bushels. I do not think since, however, that I have gone above five bags. This year I took off 23 acres for nine bags to the acre. Another 90 acres went seven bags, and I am handling some now which goes about six bags, and the last I sowed late and it went three bags. So that, on the whole, the average will be about five bags. The cost of putting in and taking off would take five bags to make wages and cover the risks a man takes. I have a two, a three, and a four-furrow plough. I generally use 11 working horses when ploughing. A three-furrow will do about 4 acres, and the four-furrow would average about 5½ acres a day. My cultivator is a 17-tyne and would average about 15 acres a day. I have a 13-hoe drill and have done as much as 18 acres a day but I do not harrow. With a binder I can do about eight acres a day. I have a 6ft. Sunshine harvester which answers satisfactorily and I consider the Sunshine to be the best on the market, although there are many parts in it which are a disgrace to civilisation. With it I can do about seven acres on an eight-bag crop and one a six-bag crop possibly 10 acres. I use a disc plough, as a rule, and go four or five inches deep. I believe in fallow, and would not sow an acre without it, except it was new land. The larger the machine the quicker it will come to pieces. A four-furrow will do the ploughing as well as the three-furrow. The older the land the better it will have to be farmed. You could scratch a crop in now on good gimlet new soil, and with rain you will come out all right, but when the land is older that sort of farming will not do at all. I came here without any money 10 years ago and I consider I would have been just as well off, as far as my social condition goes, if I had been in gaol, when I take into account the work I have done and the hours of labour, and the carting from Beverley. If I had £2,000 cash in the bank to-day I would only be receiving fair compensation for what I have gone through, whereas, as a fact, I have nothing at all. The market value of the land at present is nil. We have to bump against so many natural causes, such as pests, hail, sometimes fires and want of rain, but though I am prepared to battle against natural difficulties, most of our difficulties are man-made, and the tariff is at the root of the whole thing. It increases the price of machinery and the cost of living all round. The ordinary workman can go to the arbitration court and get his proper wages paid. A few years ago the workers in the locomotive shops demanded higher wages and got them. The result was that the following week our freights were put up. The tariff raises the wages of the men and raises the price of food, both of which react on the farmer. The tariff is crippling the primary industries, and is not even building up local manufactures. The cost of everything has been raised by the tariff. The struggle between labour and capital is going on and yet the interest of both are really identical. Bulk handling would lessen the costs if properly worked. Personally, I have not tried fodder crops or artificial grasses, for the reason that I have plenty of feed on my property. If the unimproved value of the land was taxed each man would use as much land as he could work, but no man could make a living upon less than 1,000 acres of good land. He should crop annually by himself with one team 300 acres. I do not consider, under the present system of land rents, that the farmer has a fair deal. He should be given the land for nothing for a period and for so long at least as the production is high. The land should be valued, say, in six years' time and the unimproved value taxed. Another thing is that the freights on the railways should be pooled. The wheat of the man who is close alongside the railway should not be worth as much as that of the man 20 miles away. The man who is further back has no modern conditions to live under, and yet his wheat is not worth as much as that of the other man. The railways are supposed to be national undertakings but it is the man who works on the land who pays for them, while the man who does not work land does not pay for them. The railways should be nationalised in the truest sense because the further a man goes out the heavier he is penalised. A resolution to this effect was passed by the Farmers and Settlers' Association at Bendigo the other day. The real trouble of the farmer is the struggle between capital and labour, and it is brought about by the manner in which the revenue is raised. Every man should pay his proper quota.

(The witness retired.)

EDWARD DOUGLAS WOODS, Jennaberring, sworn and examined:

7876. By the CHAIRMAN: How long have you been in this district?—Seven years. I was previously employed by Wainwright & Co., of Geraldton, and I was on a station at Gullewa with my uncles, Mr. Charles Mitchell, for seven years. I took up 1,000 acres of land, 500 acres of which is first class, in the Jennaberring area, the price for some of which is 12s. 6d., and for the rest 15s. an acre, but these prices have since been reduced. There is also 700 acres of sand plain, for which I pay 12s. 6d. The property is nine miles from the railway. I have 1,000 acres fenced with six wires and 700 acres cleared. Of this 300 is first class and the balance sand plain. The reason I cleared so much of the light land was on account of the finances. My water supply consists of two dams, one 1,000 cubic yards, 8 feet deep, and the other 600 yards, 6 feet deep. There are also a couple of soaks. No doubt I could sink the dams to 10 to 12 feet. I am a married man,