27 



The Uduc agricultural area joins the south line of the Harvey 

 area ; it comprises 12,000 acres and was thrown open fo r selection 

 in August, 1^94. The survey includes 54 lots :ig.mvgating ^,415 

 acres, nf which up to date 1,400 acres have been chosen by eight 

 occupiers. Uduc is about live miles south-west from Cookernup 

 townsite, So miles from Perth. The blocks could be worked under 

 practically the same conditions as those described for the Harvey 

 area. Many of the most central had been taken up before the land 

 was subdivided, by people who are gradually applying for others to 

 increase their holdings. 



In the vicinity of the Brunswick river, which is crossed in 

 going from Perth to Bunbury a few miles below the Uduc agri- 

 cultural area, there are some dairymen who send butter to the city ; 

 but the quantity is so small that very few people of the colony ever 

 taste the home-made article. The output of the Brunswick is 

 chiefly consigned to large householders in easy circumstances, who 

 do not cavil at paying 2s. per pound for a prime fresh local brand ; 

 but even this return has not so far encouraged many butter-makers 

 to enter the field. In the late winter and spring some butter is made, 

 but as soon as the flush of green feed has given place to the yellow 

 tinge of the ripening summer the churn is put away as an implement 

 that it will not pay to use. The dairyman who peruses this chapter 

 and who is accustomed to modern methods of cream producing and 

 butter making, will perceive that given a rainfall of at least 35 inches 

 38 inches would be nearer the quantity if we wished to press the 

 point of plenty of moisture and loam lands that can be watered in 

 summer, he could do well in a country where milk is never less than 

 sixpence per quart retail, nor butter less than tifteenpence per 

 pound. If he should be in eastern Australia he will know that he 

 would be well satisfied to receive one third of these returns, and 

 that in places which are not so near market, where railways are not 

 running almost past his door, as they are in the south-w r est district, 

 and where land suitable for dairying costs very much nearer 10 

 per acre than the ten shillings per acre he would have to give in 

 the west for any area in excess of the 160 acres comprising his 

 free homestead farm. The truth is that Western Australia buys her 

 butter abroad just as, speaking generally, she buys her wheat 

 beyond her bounds, not because it does not pay to produce milk, 

 butter, and wheat, but because she is too young dating her birth 

 from the inception of responsible government, which was her real 

 starting point in national progress to have had time to supply her 

 needs from the fruits of the soil. 



Beyond the Brunswick we are at Dardanup, the most notable 

 estate in which neighborhood is Prinsep park, once the property of 

 Mr. H. W. Venn, who for live years held the post in the Forrest 

 Ministry of Commissioner of Railways and Public Works. Mr. 

 Venn had a fine herd of Ayrshires, which was dispersed when he 

 sold Prinsep park to an English syndicate, who have a belief that 



