—I think farming implements should come in free of duty. An Australian made harvester is sold at a lesser price in Africa then in Western Australia. My costs of putting in and taking off is from 30s. to 33s. I can just hold my own at 10 bushels. The highest average yield i have had was 15 or 16 bushels. The general average is between 10 and 11 bushels.

9708. To Mr PAYNTER: I favour the continuance of the wheat pool conditionally on the Government receiving the wheat through its own direct representatives and so eliminating the immediate agents. Darling & Co., Bell & Co. and the rest have battened on us long enough and should be done away with. It is costing us 6s. 8d. in the pound to market our wheat. We get only half the value of our labour, yet we have to pay our bills in full. I have never had any assistance from the experts or officials of the Agricultural Department. I attended one lecture by Mr Sutton and learned a little, for instance, learned to lime my wheat after pickling, but my experience of the departmental experts has not been too good. They come to me as a farmer, get my experience and dish it up at public meetings. I have never applied for information and been refused. I value my land at pre war estimate, £3 per acre.

9709. To Mr VENN: I carry 250 sheep; without them and the pigs and fowls i would have to surrender the farm. I do no dairying. I am of opinion that it could be done in this district. If we had been receiving depots from the cream we could do well at it. 9710. To Mr PAYNTER: I consider the Government should not charge anything for poison land. They should merely stipulate that if a man sold it he should then pay the Government for the land. What we require to do is to make the land valuable. Poison must be worked for years before the land becomes of value. I would make improvement conditions, of course. Apart from poison I think the land laws are very satisfactory, assuming that a man has railway communication within 12½ miles.

9711. To Mr VENN: Some of our smaller men are having a very hard struggle. Very few farms are changing hands, but only because there is no money about. A number of men would be prepared to walk off for the costs of their improvements. Women and children on the small farms are subjected to many privations. Wheat growing alone is not profitable. It would be a boon if local authorities went in for pedigree stock, and made them available for farmers. Thus we could establish a dairy land at a normal cost. It would be the simplest solution of this big question. There has not been any marked increase in the number of cows in this district.

9712. By Mr CLARKSON: Have you any suggestion to make which will tend towards the successful development of the land? -The great want at present is production. The State is like a man with a 10 H.P. engine doing only 4½ H.P. work. Plenty of settlers could get more from the third year principle than by fallowing. In the past a man had not got sufficient off his land to be able to employ labour to clear land. A man can get 18 bushels by fallow on the third year system, whereas by the second year system he would get 14 bushels off fallow. Besides, a man can carry more sheep. The point is how to find the money. The State cannot afford to stand out of its money. Let the State step in and assist with the additional clearing as a man wants it, the man to guarantee to put that in the first year and pay back half the cost of the additional clearing out of the first crop, leaving the balance to be paid in the second year. being already established the farmer will have all the necessary machinery. The new land ought to give nine bushels, which, at 3s. represents 27s. Half the cost of clearing would be, say, 12s. 6d. Thus the farmer gets 14s. 6d. and the State gets the balance, and the farms can afford to allow his old land to lie out on the third year principle. In the second year the farmer would get, say, 12 bushels or 36s. out of which he would have to pay the second half of the cost of clearing or 12s. 6d. In the third year the additional clearing will be put in fallow. The cost of clearing will have been paid and the farmer has the benefit of the new clearing. I consider the principle of land tax altogether wrong. The State is none the better off for the £3 tax i have to pay to the Government. Instead of making me pay £3 they ought to make me put in £3 worth of additional clearing, which would return 36 bushels of wheat at 3s. per bushel, which would bring into the State £5 8s. or foreign capital. It would leave the State £2 8s. better off per annum. The land tax is a drag on the State. (The Witness Retired.)

HARRY WALTER GAYFER, Farmer, Kunjin, sworn and examined:

9713. To Mr CLARKSON: I have been farming here 12 years. I hold 5,600 acres here, and at Kunjin, in three separate farms. If that 3,600 acres is first class, the balance being grazing land, pure sandplain. I have 2,200 acres of forest cleared, and 400 acres of sandplain under cultivation. l carry 20 working horses, and 800 sheep. I crop 960 acres, practically all of it being fallow. I believe in fallow. Fallow is five bushels better than other methods. Unfortunately i have no weeds. We have some poison. It is a great handicap. I cultivate the fallow just before seeding. I use 45 lbs. of seed and 70 lbs. of super. my highest average yield has been 22 bushels, the average over a term of years being 16 bushels. The cost of putting in and taking off is, I think, 22s. 6d. exclusive of bags. I require eight bushels on a basis of 3s. or over hold my own. I think the farmers is the eastern end of the district are holding their own. I use the largest machinery i can get. In a large field the machinery should be as large as the strength will permit. Bulk handling would reduce costs. It certainly would reduce the expenses of the wheat pool. it would be more profitable even if we used bags between the paddock and the railway. The quality of the bags we are getting today is very inferior. I have not gone deeply into the question of tariff. If the farmer were relieved of it he would be hit in some other way.

9714. To Mr PAYNTER: The saleable value of improved land in this district at pre war values would be about £2 10s. I favour the continuation of—