332 AN IRRIGATION SICTTLKM I-:NT. 



much as i)L)Ssible, and pay an annual rent. The tenure is for 

 life or good conduct. The number of holdings to-day amounts 

 to about 400, and the settlement has a ]>opulation of 3,000. 

 When I visited the place for the first time in 1898, there were 

 a couple of traders at the Kakamas Drift, holding short-notice 

 trading licences on Government land. The whole country was 

 bare and uncultivated, the nearest farm-steading being about 

 iq miles away. The colonists came from difterent parts of 

 the Ca])e Province, but chiefly from the North-West, and were 

 mostly bywoners or people who had lost their all through 

 drought. The principles laid down for tlic redemption of 

 these people were intensive and personal cultivation of the 

 soil, educational agencies, industrial instruction. Let me give 

 a description of what has been attained thus far. 



Many of the colonists have built verv^ good Ijrick houses, 

 have farmed their plots with success, have fenced these into 

 lucerne fields, vineyards, orchards, and wheat lands. The failures 

 can be put down as under 10 per cent. There is an air of 

 general prosperity and independence in the whole ])lace, and very 

 little of so-called " poor whitism " remain^. One ])articularly 

 successful colonist made a clear j)rofit last year of about £300 off 

 his six morgen of land. The chief difficulty that had to be en- 

 countered was to eradicate the trekking propensity, and the love 

 of ranch-farming. There is a large and very nearly self-suji- 

 ]X)rting congregation of some 1,200 members, to whom two 

 clergymen minister. There are seven schools with an average 

 roll-call of 700 children, and 20 teachers. There is a class of 

 20 ])upil-teachers. Of the teachers. 10 were locally trained and 

 took their elementary teachers' Government certificate. Of the 

 pupils, 150 are above standard V. The need for i)roviding for 

 the children of the colonists, who cannot be allowed to s(|uat on 

 their parents' allotments, has raised the industrial cjuestion. An 

 effort is being made to get the (.Jovernment to establish at 

 Kakamas an Agricultural School for the teaching of ])rofitable 

 intensive farming, poultry rearing. ])ig and shee]) raising, fruit 

 culture, on the lines of the Government Agricultural Schools at 

 (xrootfontein. I'otchefstroom, ;ind Cedara. but on a basis that 

 will involve coniparati\el\ little expense beyond the salaries of 

 the instructors. The means are to hand on the spot, both in 

 the human elemeiU and the soil. The Provincial (Government 

 has made arrangements for carpentering and smiths' work. 

 There is. howexer, an op])t)rtunity for develo])ment on a large 

 scale in the matter of leather and Ijoot mantifactiire. .\nd here 

 I may fitly introduce the sjiade-work that has ])een done in this 

 direction. As noted in .Mr. Kanthack's re])ort of n^M, at the 

 thirteenth mile on the nortlu-i-n furrow a 2_'-foot fall has lieeii 

 given. This iK)tential has been utilised for the erection of a 

 double turbine develo])ing up to 150 horse-power. .\ visit to 

 Switzerkmd in 1910 convinced me that we have made far too 

 little use of the existing water-power in South Africa for indus- 

 trial ])Urposes. The ekn-tricit}- (levelo])ed by these turliines is 



