12329. To what purpose is the balance of the land devoted?—Some of it is timbered, but us being cleared now. It is all being put into working order as fast as possible. This last year I have graded it and put in permanent channels on the top half of block 54. the house stands on the other part of the block. I am also clearing the two back blocks.

12330. How long have you been at Harvey?—Some 14 years.

12331. What proportion of your trees is 10 years and over?—I cannot give you an exact estimate. The question is as to what class of trees bears at Harvey and what class does not. Out of the 30 acres I have planted, I should say 16 acres are bearing fruit, and the balance will never bear anything. I should say that four acres of trees are 10 years old.

12332. Why is it that the balance of land mentioned by you does not bear?—Because the trees were of bad stock from the start.

12333. Do you contemplate replanting?—No. I have had a lot of experimental work done there. I am cutting back these trees which do not bear and budding them with Washington Navels and Valencia Lates. I am getting the buds for these off trees in my own orchard, which have borne always since they were old enough to bear, no matter what the conditions were, or what the season might have been. If it was a bad season they bore a little, and if it was a better season they bore more, but they always bore. The other lot never bore anything.

12334. Are your 16 acres of good trees mingled up with the bad trees?—They are mingled together in the 30 acres. Anyone inspecting my orchard would see for themselves without any trouble those trees which are of the kind I am referring to and those which are not. They grow a totally different foliage, and look different, and it would not need an expert to find them.

12335. What induced you to go on with the class of tree which has given you such bad results?—Until we got irrigation we could not find out the reason why these trees did not bear. Each year we expected that is was due to wrong manuring, bad seasons, or the easterly winds. Since we have had irrigation the whole orchard has re-juvenated itself. We have been irrigating for three years now and sowing large quantities of manures, both green and otherwise. We can see now that these trees are simply mulish and will not bear. Six or seven years ago I suspected something of the sort and budded over two rows of bad trees—this was before irrigation—along Fifth Street. Now they are typically good bearing trees. They bore a fair crop last year, and we have a nice crop this year. When I found that the butts would take over the good fruit I did not pull out the trees, because it is hard to get young orange trees to grow between old ones. I had to pull out 200 odd and replant, but I am now chiefly going in for this other system.

12336. What is the depth of the soil in the 30 acres which you have planted?—The depth there is from a foot to two feet before you come to the subsoil. The land is quite good. We find that the roots of the orange trees go well down into the subsoil.

12337. Is your orchard drained?—Yes. It is pipe drained throughout. It is, in fact, properly drained. Before it was drained it used to be a swamp. In winter time I could not put a horse or a plough into it, and it took a fortnight after the rain before anything could be done with it. This year we irrigated for about an inch on one day and during the three days following it rained nearly 3in., which made 4in. of water in all. Notwithstanding this, we could have put the ploughs in at once if we had so desired. The water runs away as fast as it gets there. The fault with the Harvey is that the water does not run away. When the land is properly drained it dies magnificently well. The blocks at Harvey, taken as blocks, are not any different to mine. Some of them have different soils, but some of them are the same type as my own but lie a little lower. My blocks are high. On the other blocks one finds a man at this time of the year digging down two feet and coming to water at once. On my blocks that is not so. Whereas a man on the lower blocks gets only a two feet drainage, I get four or five feet. The water does not escape fast enough when it is put on to a great deal of this area. The result is that there is a back wash; this being due to the fact that the drainage channel was turned from the original direction, as laid down by the engineer 14 or 15 years ago, for the purpose of letting the water out to the coast. The fall that is now provided is not sufficient, and never will be.

12338. How deep are your tiled drains?—They go down to a depth of 3ft. 6in. to 4ft., and in some shallow places they are not quite as deep as that. The drains carry the water through from depths of about that.

12339. Have you formed any opinion of the increased yield of your trees due to the installation of the irrigation system?—Without irrigation, and with all the care that the trees were given, they were going back. They were too long without water during the summer months and used to get die back. Then the sudden rain came and the trees shoot out delicate branches, which were easily killed with any change of climate. They also were attacked with aphis, which used to eat them off. You cannot now see any dieback because the trees have re-grown. The growth is prolific and strong. My crop of oranges will not be very much more than it has always been because the trees bear as well as they can, I think. I suppose I shall have from 2,500 to 3,000 cases off the 16 acres. But this year the fruit is superbly good. It is big, and it is perfectly clean. That is to say, it has no red scale or any other scale attacking it. I might have more cases, because the fruit will be of a finer and larger quality, though I might not have more fruit in actual numbers.

12340. Have you had any difficulty in applying the water to your land?—Very little. There was some the first time. We were rather slow about it at first, but we soon found the lay of it and had no difficulty after that. Of course, there is a good deal of my land on to which I cannot get any water at all, broken land running along in the billabong. But as regards the orchard land I have no difficulty in getting the water on. This year I have graded, and next year I shall have no difficulty in getting the water on to another part where I intend to plant citrus trees and lucerne. In fact, I have lucerne there which is 12 years old, and has never