xiv Advertisetnents. 



WESTERN AUSTRALIA: 



ITS MINES AND FARMING LANDS. 



VARIETY OF INDUSTRIES. FRUIT AND WHEAT GROWING. 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR INVESTMENT. 



The great State of Western Australia, comprising nearly a million square miles of country, 

 offers at the present time an attractive field to investors large and small and to agricultural 

 immigrants of all descriptions. In the South- Western Division, where development is being 

 concentrated just now, a number of industries are successfully carried on, and are rapidly 

 expanding, while large areas still await settlement and cultivation, In the wide areas east 

 of the Darling Range,. Wheat-growing, combined with sheep farming and mixed farming 

 generally, is now conducted with excellent results, the yield of wheat having risen from 956,886 

 bushels in the season ended February 1902, to 5.897,540 bushels in 1911. In the same division, 

 but more to the west and south, there are vast forests of timber, which have provided the 

 opportunity for an extensive industry in the sawing and preparation and export of hardwoods 

 that are used for commercial purposes in various parts of the world. The timber export in 

 1910 was valued at £972,698, compared with £867,419 in the previous year, and with £511,923 

 in 1907. 



There is also a growing fruit industry in the Darling Ranges and in other parts of the 

 South- West to the ultimate extension of which it would be difficult to set limits. It is expected 

 that 60,000 cases of fruit will be exported this year, as contrasted with 28,000 in the previous 

 year, while about 20,000 acres of land are now under orchards and vineyards, and the area 

 planted is increasing at the rate of 2,000 acres per annum. 



Wool-growing and sheep -raising are carried on both in the South- West and the North- West, 

 and in the season 1910-11 the number of sheep in the State increased from 4,731,737 to 

 5,158,516 ; while in the same period the nuriber of cattle, largely in the far North but now 

 advancing also in the South, from 793,217 to 825,000. The export of wool in 1910-11 reached 

 a value of £1,047,456. 



Close cultivation of root and fodder crops is also carried out successfully in the wetter 

 portions of the South- West. 



But besides the farming avocations, which are now being extended rapidly, there is the 

 Mining industry in the East and North- West, which has gained the greatest fame for Western 

 Australia. Gold alone, since the year 1886, has been produced to the value of over 103 millions 

 sterling, and more than 22 millions has been paid in dividends by mining companies. 



As the development of highly specialised machinery for the recovery of gold proceeds and 

 railways are extended, it is to be believed that further opportunities for investment in this 

 great industry will be presented, especially in the many low-grade propositions which are 

 now only awaiting capital for their development. 



Western Australia also produces many of the baser metals, such as Copper, Tin, Tant'alite, 

 Lead, &c., while the production of a sound coal is annually rising, and a successful bunkering 

 trade with ocean-going vessels has been opened up. 



