5 



beds in the height of summer to meet all requirements except those 

 of extensive irrigation, which could however be carried out on a 

 large scale if the surplus water that runs into the sea in the winter 

 season, was impounded. So far the settlers have been satisfied 

 with the crops they can grow unaided by an artificial water supply. 

 There are many spots in the south-west division admirably adapted 

 to intense culture under irrigation, and these before long are bound 

 to attract closer settlement. Hitherto, to use a biblical illustration, 

 the vineyard has been large and the laborers few. Up to the date 

 of the acquisition of self-government, and the almost simultaneous 

 development of the goldfields, the demand for produce was not 

 large enough to stimulate the inception of enterprise of a special 

 kind. Now that producers have before them a sphere of great 

 profit opened up by the demands of an ever-expanding market, the 

 south-west, which has lain comparatively idle, is in great requisition 

 by the class of husbandmen for whom the Homesteads' Act 

 was passed ; that is to say, by those who desire to get a small holding, 

 and to improve it to its utmost capacity. To these a garden that 

 could be irrigated from the waters of a brook at midsummer, when 

 all kinds of table vegetables are at a premium, would prove to be a 

 most valuable possession, and one that, in its virgin state, as we shall 

 show in the course of this chapter, is only waiting hands to claim it. 



Next to the exceptional rainfall of the south-west and the 

 great possibilities which a practically unlimited water supply carry 

 with it, the district is famous for its timber, which, however, will 

 be very briefly glanced at here, as it is more fully dealt with else- 

 where. Typical scenes from the magnificent jarrah and karri 

 forests that are doing so much to build up a great export trade for 

 the colony, have been selected for insertion in this work, and 

 give an excellent idea of the country in its natural state. 



The country lying between the Darling range and the sea is 

 curiously compounded of limestone formation and of soil that is so 

 deficient in lime and salt that cattle kept a few miles inland have 

 occasionally to be sent to runs which border on the coast for 

 a change. The limestone formation is so far destitute of all the 

 constituents that are necessary for the maintenance of stock in 

 the fullest vigor, that they have to be sent back a few miles from 

 the salt water to what is called the " clay land," to fatten. The 

 stay of the cattle on the new pasturage need only be for six or 

 eight weeks in each year, and if they are shifted regularly they are 

 kept fat, and in the spring put on flesh readily. Stock kept exclu- 

 sively either close to the coast or on the clay lands, become, in 

 course of time, more or less debilitated. For a year or two they 

 may do fairly \vell on the well grassed frontages of the Darling 

 range, but they slowly fall away unless they get the occasional 

 rough lime and saline-impregnated herbage, which is a wonderful 

 tonic, even though it may be of the coarsest fibre. 



