13 



and pipe that draw upon the Yan Yean reservoir, and which has 

 to be paid for at so much per thousand gallons, according to the 

 weekly reading of the meter by the officer of the Water Supply 

 department ? And let a simple calculation be made as to what 

 8,000 head of cabbnges, at the average weight of 5 Ibs., would 

 amount to at twopence per pound, or even one penny per pound, 

 grown on land close enough to the metropolis to be carted there 

 without railway charges, and on land, which except for the i for 

 registration, costs the gardener nothing. 



It may, however, be said that the market for vegetables will 

 soon be supplied when the epoch of the humble but hardworking 

 Mongolian with his rake and his trowel gives way to a sturdy 

 generation of British ploughmen who are the owners of Clydesdales 

 and Planet Juniors and all the other paraphenalia and horse power 

 of an up-to-date vegetable grower. Let those who may fear that 

 they will not find elbow room in the business, that competition will 

 quickly be supplied, and that the present prices, or an approach to 

 them, be very evanescent, note the following counsel : The de- 

 mand for vegetables is not to be gauged by the present consump- 

 tion, for vegetables are far more sparingly doled out at most tables 

 than bread, simply because there are, to use a familiar phrase, " not 

 enough to go round." If the supply increased the demand would 

 spring in the same ratio, for although this is not the place in which 

 to indite a treatise upon the bills of mortality, or the social well- 

 being of the people, it is admitted by the medical faculty that in 

 some respects including that of eating plenty of vegetables, which 

 are not now forthcoming the hygienic conditions of the people of 

 Western Australia could be much improved. Again, the colony is 

 so large and the spheres of profitable industry it offers are so 

 numerous that overcrowding is a very conjectural contingency, at 

 any rate for many years to come. It may be said, however, that 

 market gardening is an industry that is soon overdone, as the crops 

 take comparatively but little time to mature. For this to occur the 

 prices now realised would have to fall several hundred per cent. 

 To show the unlikelihood of over-production in this industry 

 within measurable time, supposing the population to increase ever 

 so slowly, a great many credible witnesses could be called, but it 

 will be preferable to take the records of Parliament. In the ses- 

 sion of 1895 the Hon. E. McLarty, M.L.C., and a member of the 

 Bureau of Agriculture, who speaks with mature knowledge of the 

 Mandurah district, asked the assistance of the Legislative 

 Council, by resolution, to foster the establishment of market 

 gardens with a view to encouraging the establishment of 

 canneries. His speech on the subject was so full of pith and 

 cogent force that this chapter would be incomplete if some of his 

 remarks were not quoted here. The motion which the hon. member 

 moved in the Council on the 8th October, 1895, was as follows : 



