FREDERICK NOBLES, Farmer, Wadderin, sworn and examined:

8040. By the CHAIRMAN: I understand you wish to make a statement? - Yes. It refers to the water question, which is a serious matter. In fact, if the well here gives out, we will have to leave the district, as there is no other water. I have had to cart 200 or 3f00 gallons every day. It is supposed to make 72 gallons an hour, but as everyone in the district is carting from it, the want of water is hanging me up and my horses are standing idle. There are about 30 settlers about here. There is another bore further on, and a deputation is going to Perth about the matter immediately. I personally have a very good catchment area. The Government dam has been dry for six months. It is six miles from here and the water has to run up hill to it. A man named Chapman put it there. I have put one dam down by means of the bank, but it has not enough capacity and I want another. Fricker's Well makes 70 gallons a day and there is no other dam anywhere near. We also require a pump here. I have had to do all my own work with the cultivator. I have no plough.

8041. The intentions of the Government are that you should have a plough. You can not fallow without a plough and you are compelled to fallow by their own regulations? - There is hardly a man in the whole district who has a wagon.

(The witness retired.)

The Commission adjourned.

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SATURDAY, 3rd FEBRUARY, 1917. (At Emu Hill.) _______________

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

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MATTHEW HENRY READ, Farmer, Emu Hill, sworn and examined:

8042. By the CHAIRMAN: How long have you been in the district? - Six and a half years. I had been mixed farming in Lillydale nearly all my life, subsequently I was blacksmithing on the mines and prospecting. I hold 927 acres here. It is all first class with the exception of 200 acres of stone. The price of the land ranges from 26s. to 16s. 3d. The price of the land was reduced from 26s. to16s. 8d., but I thought of trying to get it still lower on account of the prevalence of rocks. I have 700 acres cleared. There is plentiful soakage for a water supply. I have yards, but no shed, a full set of implements, with the exception of a spring-tooth cultivator; six working horses, a foal,18 pigs and 150 fowls. When I came here I had £150 capital. I owe the Agricultural Bank £550 and the Industries Assistance Board about £150. I have 200 acres of crop averaging 15 bushels. I have not seen anything of the Agricultural Department experts or had any advice from them on any of the difficulties that have beset me while pioneer farming out here, although I believe some time ago Mr Sutton motored around here.

8043. By Mr PAYNTER: How much crop was fallowed? - Fifty acres. I believe in fallow. I favoured Currawa, which looked like a 40 bushel crop. It actually went 21 bushels on the fallow. I sowed one bag Currawa to every five acres and it gave a return of 17 bushels. The crop that you see from here was put in wet. I used 90lbs of super. to the acre. I have a four-furrow plough and use six horses and do five acres a day. I have a disc cultivator, which does seven acres a day. It is a seven feet cultivator. I think that harrowing after the crops are up is of immense value. I use a 15-disc drill, which does 10 acres a day and the binder does about the same. I have a five feet Deering harvester, which does six acres a day. I consider the most suitable wheat for the district is Currawa, and I am going nap on it. I have had it for three years and originally imported it from Victoria. Bulk handling is a system that must come in time. I have no disease in my crops what so ever. I had two or three balls of smut in the Alpha this year, but that was its only appearance. I did not pickle my wheat. I am sorry to be here, because I could make top wages at blacksmithing with half the work. Here I have to work 16 hours a day every day of the week, including Sundays. I am singlehanded, but have just managed to secure a boy at last. Any man in the district would want 1,000 acres to make a living off it. What absorbs such an enormous quantity of time is the odd jobs on the farm. A man should be able to do 200 acres singlehanded, unless he wants to make a slave of himself. He might be able to do 400 acres if he did not go to bed at all. I do not think the price of land should exceed 10s. We should have had a railway instead of having to cart so far. Mr W.D. Johnson announced that if we did not pay the rents