8 4 



The 



and stands an unexpected spell of dry weather with less injury. The- 

 co-operation of the Land bank is not very largely availed of simply 

 because the growers are too prosperous to require to borrow. They 

 recognise its advantages, and would strongly commend them to those- 

 who had heavy preliminary expenses to incur in establishing then* 

 selves. But as most of the older settlers till their own land and have- 

 overcome all the early difficulties of re-claiming their fields from? 

 the forest before the bank came into existence, they have the profits- 

 of the sale of their crops to enable them to undertake further improve- 

 ments and to buy plant, both of which are employing a lot of capital 

 in Toodyay. The scene at harvesting time is very different now to- 

 what it was a few years ago, when old-fashioned implements of limited 

 power were in vogue. Now more than one reaper and binder is to 

 be seen in many paddocks, and all the hay is cut by steam 

 instead of horse or hand power, the use of which it does not require- 

 a long memory to recall. The altered regime is fully recognised by 

 the manufacturers of agricultural machinery in England, and they 

 spare no effort to bring the latest additions to the resources of th( 

 farmer under the notice of so progressive a body of men as the pro- 

 ducers of Toodyay, who know what they want, and have money t< 

 pay for it, without asking for long terms. An example of the good- 

 ness of the market of the Eastern districts for ploughs and reapers 

 and binders, harrows, scarifiers, and steam chaff-cutting plant, 

 afforded at a show held last year at York, and the illustration fully 

 applies to Newcastle, where, however, the possession of an ample and 

 well appointed show ground prevents exhibitors having to combat 

 difficulties in displaying the latest triumphs of the designer, the en- 

 gineer and the artisan. The show ground at York, stored as it was- 

 with many examples of the stock and the produce of so large and 

 prosperous a district, was found to be too small to accommodate the 

 machinery sections, and in this department the display had to be relega- 

 ted to a piece of spare ground which the visitors passed on their way 

 to the exposition. But, so far from umbrage being taken by the 

 machinery firms at what they might have considered to be scant 

 courtesy on the part of the show committee, seeing how expensivt 

 it is for exhibitors to send goods of heavy bulk such a distance fror 

 town, that every agrarian labour-saving invention that adorns th< 

 catalogues of the most up-to-date firms for the season of 1896-97. \va? 

 displayed, it was evident that the opportunity was too good to lose r 

 and anyone who would ascertain the number of machines of varioui 

 kinds that have been introduced around Newcastle, Beverley, Yori 

 and Northam, during the last three years, would be forced to the 

 same conviction. A cry of something like commie-ration is being 

 raised on behalf of the farmers of Great Britain, whom high rents and 

 foreign competition have been seriously depleting within the last few 

 years. In Western Australia it is not too much to say that the pro- 

 ducer in anything in a large way, is on the high road to indepen- 

 dence. 



