cleared before a man can can secure a stock loan. By the time he gets 250 acres cleared the land is overrun with weeds and he would have to start and clear it again. Most of the men here are under the Industries Assistance Board and they will not allow you to go off your property. The water question is a serious one. The Government well is the only water available and that I am afraid will only last another fortnight.

8163a. By the CHAIRMAN : Would it not be between if the settler was to start off by procuring water ? - but you must have a horse to cart stores and cart water and once your land is cleared you must have horse feed and seed wheat.

8163b. When you have the feed you can put down a dam for yourself ? - A man here sank a couple of wells and these saw him through for two years while he went on cropping. But if we can get a railway we will succeed here. I consider that when it is properly worked this district should average 12 to 15 bushels.

                                             ( The witness retired )

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                    JOHN DUNN, Farmer, Kurren Kutten, sworn and examined : 

8164. By the CHAIRMAN : How long have you been in this district ? - Since 1910. I was previously farming in Victoria. I hold 682 acres, 650 acres at first class. The price is 10s., and the property is six and a half miles from the railway. It is all ring fenced : 400 acres is cleared. My water supply is a 750 cubic yard dam eight feet deep. I have another very good catchment, which I think contains a rocky bottom. I am a single man, and have a camp and a yard for horses, a set of implements, four working horses, a two year old and a foal. I had only enough to buy tucker with when I started here. I borrowed £660 from the Agricultural Board £400, off which has to be taken this year's crop. There is interest on the Agricultural Bank loan and interest on money owing to private creditors, I think at the rate of 10 per cent. I have 210 acres of crop going 12 bushels average. It went from 12 ½ bushels to nine bushels, and is mainly Bunyip. Some of it I cut for hay.

8165. By Mr. PAYNTER : How much of your land is fallow ? - Eighty acres, of which I plough four to five inches deep. Some of it gets two cultivators before seeding. The land is a mixture of morel and gimlet : most of it got blight on the top. The land I cultivated once was the best of the crop. I have used Alpha which is inclined to be smutty. Bunyip is a good yielder, but goes down with the wind and rain. So also does Federation. Last year I stripped 156 acres for 750 bags. The tariff weighs heavily on the farmer who sells his produce in the open market, while everything he uses he has to pay duty on. If machinery and implements were free it would make a great difference to him : he cannot pass the duty on to anyone else. Bulk handling no doubt is a good thing and would save bags. I have had no disease in my crops. I pickle but do not grade my seed. But I should have done so. In this district a man should hold 2,000 acres, and to warrant expenditure on horses and machinery he should have 600 acres cleared, and have 300 in crop and 300 in fallow. The maximum he could farm under the best system with help would be 30 acres. On new ground from the next year the crops seem to do better, that is, fallow one year and crop the next. By cultivating it and putting another crop in it makes a better seed bed. I do not think the price of good land is unreasonable unless a man holds a big area on which he pays rent but does not use. None of the land out here should exceed 15s. in any case. Some of the best land was 10s., but after surveyed some of it went up to 27s., which is quite unreasonable.

8166. By Mr. VENN : Are you troubled by Rabbits ? - Rabbits are between the fences. No. 1 fence was put up after the rabbits were there. In 1903 there was 35 miles of fence northward from the coast, and that was all. I saw them myself 45 miles west of the surveyed line at the time. There were old buck heaps to show that they had been there a year at least. I think the rabbits are making towards the north. The fence when constructed forced them north. They were through the No 2 fence at 45 miles north before it was constructed and towards Wongan HIlls, but I did not notice any traces south of Cunderdin. Not many rabbits have got through the fence where it has been properly maintained. The fault lay in the fence not being put up soon enough.

8167. By the CHAIRMAN : What are the prospects of this district ? - The land is all right, but the seasons are erratic. Our worst month is September, and the rain after the damage was done last year. If it had fallen in September we would have had great crops. Cultivation may get over that draw back perhaps ; on the whole I think I shall make a success of farming . The rabbits are worse near the lakes than anywhere else. Poison would help to eradicate them, but nothing effectual can be done without wire netting, and I do not think that fencing the railway would be much use. If the State could be divided into districts and a Vermin Board created under the Rabbit Board, the burden would fall on the farmer in sparsely populated districts unless the Government did the work through the Roads Board. There is a great extent of crown lands everywhere, and then again no wire netting is obtainable at the present time. I think the use of poisoned pollard a mistake. By the time it reaches the farmer the sugar in the mixture is fermented. Phosphorus should be supplied to the farmers and themselves should mix it in. Then you would it Fresh when you lay it. Phosphorised wheat under those conditions would be good. In New South Wales we used to boil the water and dissolve the phosphorus before mixing with the wheat. The wheat is closed up and kept tinned, and lasts for years. The department has small poison carts which should be used along the fence and would suit the farmer.

                                 ( The witness retired.) 

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ARTHUR MILLS ( A. & S. MILLS ), Farmer, " The Bungalow, " Kurren Kutten, sworn and examined :

8168. By the CHAIRMAN : How long have you been in this district ? - I came here in 1911, and had no previous experience of farming. I was an electrical engineer in the Royal Engineers. I hold 1,800 acres of land, of which 1,200 acres are first class, 600 acres are mixed land rated as second class. The price