head of cattle. I crop 18 to 20 acres of potatoes and got two crops this year. I have cropped 15 acres in some years and in others I have cropped 100 acres. I have 16 dairy cows milking. I gave £1,800 for 200 acres of my land, and the other cost me £600. I should say that the 200 acres were to-day worth £20 an acre, and the other is only worth the money I gave for it. I only just recently purchased it. I started farming with a capital of about £100.

10501. To Mr. VENN: The highest return I have had from my dairy cows has been 200lbs. The cows are Aryshires. I cross them with Jerseys. The best individual return from the pure Aryshires has been 16lbs. I have made as much as 20lbs. of butter from one cow. I have cows there now which will make 15lbs. of butter. I milked 15 cows last month and I made £23 9s. I tried lucerne growing here but made a failure of it. I was flooding the ground and the ground was too poor.

10502. To Mr. CLARKSON: I have tried maize for the cows. I rely principally on maize for feeding them. I have river flats, and I feed the cows on chaff and bran. I have grown 60 bushels of maize to the acre. I have 10 acres in. The dairying industry is increasing here. I made a big advance five of six years ago, when the Bunbury factory started, but then it dropped again. We cannot compete against the Eastern States. We have to feed out cows four of five months in the year, and they do not have to do that in the East. They have summer rains over there. We have manure here, and they have not to manure their land. If the Government gave a bonus on butter the industry would be stimulated.

(The witness retired.)

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ALFRED CRAMPTON, Orchadist and Potato grower, sworn and examined:

10503. To the CHAIRMAN: I have been established on the land I occupy for 10 years. I hold 130 acres of freehold. I purchased this land at £10 an acre for 30 acres and gave £2 an acre for 100 acres. It was unimproved when I bought it. The land is all fenced now. About 30 acres are cleared. I have a house and buildings on the land. I have four horses three pigs. I have 10 acres under orchard and I grow oranges chiefly. There are seven acres of oranges and three acres in its improved state to-day would be worth £3.000.

10504. To Mr. VENN: I grow 10 acres of potatoes and two crops each year. The highest net profit I have made per acre has been £240 an acre. I got 13 tons to the acre in that year and I got £21 a ton for the potatoes.

10505. To Mr. CLARKSON: The average yield per acre for the last five years has been five tons from the two crops. On the swamp land the average has been seven tons and about three and-a-half tons in the spring crop on the cheaper land. It costs me £27 to produce an acre of potatoes. The average price I have received for the last five years has been about £8 10s. I have tried onions, but they were not a success with me, because of the climatic conditions we generally get a downpour when the onions are ripening off and when the heat sets in that is the end of them.

10506. The average yield of potatoes at the present time is not as good as it was five years ago. The reason is I think that the seed is running out and the people are not particular enough in selecting good seed. The potato I find the most profitable to grow is in the Delaware. I was the first to grow it. It is grown all over the South-West now. The storekeeper at Harvey imported them from New South Wales and gave them to my brother to plant at a swamp at the Harvey and I got them from my brother. They are the ones I have had big yields from. My orange trees have been profitable. They are about six years old. The trees would not average a case of fruit at present. The old trees yield about three to five cases each. The lowest price at which I can sell oranges is 4s. a case. I can make them pay at that price. The biggest return I have had from oranges was this year when I got 200 cases and I got £59 for them.

(The witness retired.)

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THOMAS ALFRED DUNGEY, Fruit and Potato Grower, sworn and examined:

10507. To the CHAIRMAN: I have been established on the farm I now occupy for about 10 years. I hold 32 1/2 acres of freehold land. I paid an average of £12 10s. per acre for it. It was unimproved then. The improvements I have effected consist of clearing and fencing, a house, sheds for stock and machinery and fruit rooms. I have three working horses. I keep a few fowls for my own use. I have 11 acres which are devoted to orchard culture. Ten acres are under citrus trees and one acre of stone fruits.

10508. To Mr. VENN: The oldest orange trees are nine years old. There are oranges, mandarins, and lemons. I took, roughly, 1,600 cases off seven acres. They are improving as they grow older. There are 75 trees to the acre. I have found it very profitable. The highest gross return I have had from oranges has been that of this year when I have taken about £400. I do most of the work myself. I have found potato growing profitable up to the present, but this year it has been unprofitable, owing to the blight. The highest yield I had was nine tons. That was in the first year with Delawares. The highest average for the summer crop for the last five years was between six and seven tons. I find the seed is running out. I have changed the seed several times. I grow Delawares and nothing else now. There is Irish Blight and some times we have a Caterpillar and Potato Moth to contend with, but there is not anything that does much damage. Mr Bratby, of the Department of Agriculture, came here once and delivered a lecture. Our main grievance is in not having a decent Goods Shed here. This is very inconvenient when we have to send fruit away and we have to carry it across the railway line. We could do with cheaper fruit cases also. These are getting dearer every year. I cannot say that the settlers are all doing well, but I think the majority of them are doing fairly well.

(The witness retired.)

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The Commission adjourned.