Mallee - Part 2

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Tuesday, 26th DECEMBER, 1916. (At Esperance). Present: Charles Edward Dempster, Esq (Chairman). JAMES WHARTON WHITE, Farmer and Grazier, aged 59 years, widower, two sons and three daughters, ages from 32 to 15 years, sworn and examined. 964A. To the CHAIRMAN: My holding consists of Sections 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 41, and 683, Dalyup, containing 1,278½ acres, part of it freehold, the balance conditional purchase, only £28 remains unpaid on 615 acres, the balance having been selected more recently. I have also garden areas three miles from Esperance, viz., lot 35, 20 acres; lot 229, 10 acres; also town lot 39, Dempster Street, and Pastoral Leases 610/93E, 20,000 acres; 619/93E, 10,000 acres. These are leases of islands. The Dalyup land is all fenced and subdivided into seven paddocks, a small hut and drafting yard have been built, and about 100 acres cleared, and good deal of balance burnt off and ring-barked, two wells are on the property. I have kept 1,100 sheep. Last season I kept 200 ewes to lamb from which I obtained 90 per cent. lambs. Sold 150 lambs and 200 ewes, delivered at Ravensthorpe, at 28s. per head. At present have only 100 sheep left; also 15 head of cattle, and about 20 horses and mules and 20 pigs; keep stock mostly at Dalyup, and change to islands for fattening purposes. The names of the islands are Figure 8, Hutton Island, Boxer Island, Bens Island, and Inshore Island. Most sheep on islands at one time is 400, but Figure 8 Island would carry 500 sheep all year round. About three months to fatten if taken off poor; have sold draft 100 2-tooth wethers shorn, delivered at Hopetoun, averaging 64lbs. for 32s. 6d. per head, about seven years ago. Since then have sold to local butcher mixed aged sheep, average 85lbs., and lambs five months, 45lbs. Have been experimenting with coarse-woolled sheep, the rams used being Shrops En, Leicester Bor, Leicester Lincoln, Dorset Horn, and Romney Marsh. As a result bred large-framed sheep, but tremendous mixture wool, hence my reason for selling this year, intending at a later stage to get large-framed Merino ewes and mule with Romney Marsh rams, keeping to that strain, as I am under the impression they are better suited to this district than any other kind, and next to them the Shrops. I have not gone into farming very much since. I have been here about 22 years. Was on with Rabbit Department for several years, which afforded me an opportunity of traversing this and other portions of State, thus enabling me to draw comparisons of the land transversed with mallee land in the adjoining state of South Australia, and also that of the Western districts of Victoria. Previous to coming to Western Australia was in partnership with my brother, who is now managing for Dalgety & Co., Albany, farming and keeping stock at Kapunda, 50 miles north of Adelaide, and also in the mallee belt between Eudunda and Morgan, On River Murray, a belt about 40 miles wide by 150 miles in length, north and south. I knew that country before any of it was taken up. Now it is occupied by thousands of farmers, and large townships have been built. An average rainfall south end of this belt is about 12 inches, and the north end about 10 inches. We hold 2,000 acres in this country. We worked some ourselves and worked some on shares. In cultivating this land the object was not to cut down or mullenise more land than it was possible to keep the suckers down on; stump-jump implements being used, and three ploughings required to clear land of stumps. First year light ploughing, and if any stubble on ground after stripping, a fire run through it to kill suckers. Second year, if possible, well ploughed for fallow, working on with the land so that that cleared would be one-third under fallow, one-third under crop, and after third year one-third lying idle. This kept the ground in good order. No super. was used in my time, only just coming in use when I left South Australia. Their success was to be attributed to their proximity to railway, which was run through before settlement; probably first crop with light ploughing, seven or eight bushel crop. That is without super., and in drought seasons would reap nothing. Mallee stumps and timber were all sold and delivered at nearest railway station at from 3s. 6d. to 5s 6d. per ton on trucks. In a good season they would get up to 20 bushels — not the first crop, second, or third crop. They were liable to times of drought, and some seasons they did not harvest their seed. Frequent droughts occurred during my time. The average crop for years 1914-1915 over the whole State of South Australia was one bushel 41lbs. wheat, and that in showing the lowest average for this Esperance mallee land, it compares more favourably with other mallee land in this State from Kellerberrin eastward, as in every case the farmers here have grown their own seed and horse feed. In 1902, at the request of the Surveyor General, I reported on the country between here and Norseman as to its possibilities for pasture and agriculture, the probability of obtaining water by sinking of tanks, and I contend that the information supplied in that report holds good to day, and I hand in copy of the report as published in the Kalgoorlie Miner of the 14th May 1910, which is a copy of the report on the Departmental files. In conjunction with that report a plan was made. The plan handed in is a true copy. Those patches shown on the plan as of salty nature are the numerous salt lakes which intersect the country in Western Australia wherever you go, and do not in