freehold , and take the rest. I could the so concentrate that I could keep my fences better and could get a living by growing potatoes and milking a few cows. If I cannot get anything satisfactory from the department within three weeks I shall call a sale and get off the place and out of the State. I am married with a young family. I am on the Agricultural Bank to the extent of the liability of my predecessor, namely £187 plus £32 which I have since received from the bank. I made application to the Industries Assistance Board for some seed maize. They sent for the money, which I forwarded, but I have not the goods yet nor the money either. I have made eight or nine applications for a refund of the £3 5s. I forwarded. I have put up a hard fight on my place but I am now beaten and must get out.

9838-9 To Mr. CLARKSON : My place has a bit of history. A man by the name of Edwards from the Goldfields first took it up. He got it fenced with money from the Agricultural Bank. He sold the property for £650 to a man name Drakehard, who represented an English syndicate of fruit growers. He got their sons out from home. They stayed on the property for six years and found it was jolly to hot to work so they lounged about until they got quarrelling among themselves. Eventually they all left except Drakehard and his son. Drakehard was literary man with a wooden leg. He came away form the place and went to Claremont where he sold the property to a man named Smythe, at £450 plus the Agricultural Bank liability. Smythe sold it to me for £250. I saw the place before I bought it. I regarded it has having a fairly good asset in the fences. The land took me favourably, but I since realised that I was taken over and over the same part and was not shown all around the property. I have laid my case before the Agricultural Bank inspector and he has promised to go out and see the place. Just at the outbreak of the war in four days and nights I lost 300 sheep to the dogs. Since then I have lost in lots from 12 to 100. The next six weeks is, as a rule, the worst period in the year, so last week I sold all the sheep that I could round up. (the witness retired.) The Commission adjourned.

THURSDAY, 21st JUNE, 1917. (At Kojonup)

Present : B.L. Clarkson, Esq. (in the Chair). H. H. Paynter, Esq. / F.E.Venn, Esq.

HAROLD VIVIAN PIESSE, Farmer, Kojonup, sworn and examined :

9840. To Mr. CLARKSON : I have personally held land at Kojonup for five years. I had previous experience with it. I had been managing properties here for seven years before that. I am now working here 11,000 acres of my own and 16,300 for the estate of the late Mr. F. H. Piesse, also 3,700 for the estate of A.E. Piesse. I crop about 700 acres on my own property. This year on account of labour trouble I have only 560 acres. My average would be 1,000 acres on the two farms. I believe entirely on fallow. On an average fallow will give seven or eight bushels than other methods. Without fallow one cannot get his crop in reasonably early. We have a great deal of weeds. In the old paddocks I like to plough back. I cultivate new land in the summer. My highest average yield in any one year has been 14 bushels of wheat and 25 of oats. Oats do better than wheat. The normal average of the district over a period of years would be about 10 bushels of wheat and 15 of oats. The cost per acre of cropping I will send along to you. Roughly, I consider I have to get eight bushels at 10s. a bag to hold my own. Hudson's Early wheat does very well here. In some cases it is reputed to have returned 35 bushels. It is a wheat that Mr. Bignel brought into the district. I am using Turvey's. I do not think there is any wheat peculiarly suited to the district. I do not favour large machinery. I think a 15 hoe drill with a 6ft. harvester and 6ft. stripper and four-furrow plough about the best. With the four-furrow I can do just as good work and more cheaply than with a bigger implement, there being a great deal of stone in this district. In a district free from stone I would still use a four-furrow plough. Six horses on a four-furrow plough is about the most I can get one man to look after. The stock carrying capacity of this district on ringed land is about four acres to the sheep; on cultivated land I can run one sheep to two acres all year round. I think bulk handling would reduce costs to the farmer. I have not gone into the question of tariff.

9841. To Mr. PAYNTER : Our crops have no disease, but our rainfall is a bit excesive at times. I always pickle and grade my seed. Rape has been grown with great success here. Last year I put in a plot of Lucerne which had turned out excellently. To make a good living a man requires 2,000 to 6,000 or 7,000 acres, according to quality. I favour the continuance of the wheat pool. I think it should be free from political influence. In Kojonup a man