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and tlic energy to convert them into sqnattages, pig faun-, orchards 

 and vim-yards. The names of Edward and Duncan McLarty 

 (Beamlelnp), Duncan McLarty (Blythvvood), Paterson (Creaton), 

 Captain Thomas (Ravenswood park), and Captain Fa vcctt (Pinjarrali 

 park), arc synonyms in the south-west for yeomen on a largo scale, 

 who worked hard themselves and employed a great deal of labor. 

 They have been steadily enlarging their scope of work, adding lield 

 to field, barn to barn, until their places have become the convincing 

 grounds for jaundiced sceptics who, visiting the colony in the course 

 of a globe trotting tour, are occasionally prone to sneer at Western 

 Australia as a producing country, simply because what Governor 

 Broome called her " handful of inhabitants" have not been 

 numerous enough to spread over her wide dominions and make 

 everywhere blades of corn grow where only indigenous scrub grew 

 b jfore. I Mn jarrah and its highly improved estates may be regarded as 

 ZL land of promise, where those who have toiled and been success- 

 ful, who have carved arable lands out of the giant forests, and who, 

 long before a railway was thought of, had the pluck to cart wheat 

 and hay to Perth, are enjoying the guerdon of their stubborn uphill 

 march. At Coolup, a railway station within eight miles, we see men 

 whose work is just commencing, whose conquest and secure in- 

 dependence in taking up the vocation of a farmer has yet to be 

 achieved. The Coolup agricultural area contains 50,000 acres, 

 which formed the northern portion of what was at first gazetted as 

 the Harvey area. The surveyed section includes 30,005 acres, 

 forming 217 allotments, of which about 50 have been taken up. 

 The area, the northern portion of which is within two miles of 

 Pinjarrah station, was thrown open in Sepember, 1893, and it 

 is nearly midway between Perth and Bunbury. This land is the 

 nearest to the city, suitable for a market gardener, that is available 

 under the provisions of the Homesteads Act for the granting of a 

 free farm of 150 acres, but the locality is not so \vell drained as could 

 be desired, although there are facilities for draining it into 

 the Murray which winds through it. Along the river there is a 

 somew r hat narrow line of superior loam which the residents, in 

 some cases, are using for the rearing of fruit and vegetables. The 

 larger proportion of the Coolup area consists of yellow clay, that 

 forms indifferent grazing ground, but produces good crops of wheat 

 when it is well broken up and dressed with bone dust. There are 

 also light loamy tracts from which the surplus water, even in the 

 hollows, readily disappears. Back from the river, wells have to be 

 sunk to get water, which is obtained within 20 feet, if judgment 

 is shown in picking out a likely spot. There are some large 

 holdings on the area, notably those of Mr. Kirkham and the Messrs. 

 Olsen Bros. Mr. Kirkham, who is on the Murray close to where the 

 road from the railway station is surveyed to the river, is an English 

 farmer of experience who knew his business so well that on selling 

 out in order to emigrate to Western Australia he was able to bring 



