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an expert describes as bring to the eye of n novice " a very rough 

 bi-t of country, that was quite repellent with its thick growth of blue 

 gum, ti-tree, and stinkwood, and what appeared in be an 

 ill-nourished surface of yellow clay." Rut Mr. Wiedenbach had 

 been a skilful fruitgrower in another colony, and he perceived that 

 this piece of ground was a diamond that only needed polishing. 

 He sampled the soil and found it full of nodules of limestone ; he 

 saw it was deep and well drained and sheltered, and he set to work 

 six years ago to transform this wilderness into an orchard that 

 confounds any detractor of the pre-eminent capacity of a well- 

 chosen holding to respond to the transforming hand of man. Look 

 at it to-day. You see a model and blooming orchard, the trees 

 bright with foliage, and the limbs bearing down under the w r eight 

 of apples, of apricots, peaches and plums, of superlative size, and 

 whose size is almost as matchless as their taste. The well laid out 

 rows of orange and lemon trees are grateful shady places to recline 

 in on a blazing clay, under the heavy dark green leaves which the 

 clustering golden fruit disdains to be hidden by. 



On leaving this orchard the vision is rudely disturbed, for 

 beyond his fences there is revealed in all the stark plainness of 

 their native hue, the clank unkempt thickets of ti-tree, the 

 gaunt blue gums, the hard yellow clay that, but for the object 

 lesson we have seen, would be prone to turn the land-seeker 

 to some fairer prospect. It is not advisable even for an expert to 

 be always deterred by externals in looking for a location in Western 

 Australia, where there are, not infrequently, some kinds of country 

 having no external attractions at first sight, yet on further acquain- 

 tance revealing great potentialities of profit. Mr. Wiedenbach's pro- 

 perty has been introduced to lay stress upon the text laid down at 

 the outset, that the Canning 'is a terribly neglected district 

 especially having regard to its closeness to the capital. It is so 

 close to Perth as to be almost a suburb of that city ; it is capable of 

 producing not only enough fruit for local requirements, but for ex- 

 port, and yet the invitation which it extends to the orchardist is, 

 with the exception of the place to which reference has been made, 

 almost entirely set at nought. This is the salient fact with 

 which one is impressed in going through the heart of the Canning. 

 It is evident that the nearer a perishable product like fruit is grown 

 to market the less likely it is to be damaged in transit to the con- 

 sumer, and that as it has been proved that orchards are very profit- 

 able, even when they may be 100 miles or more from the metropolis, 

 the profit will be proportionately greater when the crop is raised at 

 the thresholds of the people who are anxious to buy and consume it. 

 The same conclusion applies to vegetables, which are grown by Mr. 

 Wiedenbach in great abundance ; yet, nevertheless, the Canning is 

 almost entirely a grazing ground which is much used by the dairymen 

 of Perth and Fremantle as a clay change for their cows. No doubt 



