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He fonvat -cU-cl some of them to the Bureau of Agriculture, which 

 placed the fruit on exhibition in the Chamber during the sittings of 

 the last Producers' conference, and they were much admired by the 

 delegates. The dates were shown in all stages of growth from the 

 germ-buds to the matured date in the fresh state, in which it is 

 seldom seen south of the line. There were also samples of the fruit 

 in a preserved condition. The size of the fruit, and the lustre of the 

 portions of the tree that were forwarded with them, exemplified 

 that the opinion held by Governor Weld, when he was at the head 

 of the administration of the colony, that Western Australia, in its 

 temperate regions, had the climate of the Mediterranean and the soil 

 of South Africa, was a conclusion drawn from very accurate obser- 

 vation. In dwelling upon what a granary of the colony the southern 

 district will be, Mr. Piesse desires to correct what he speaks of as a 

 misapprehension existing among those who have not travelled from 

 Beverley to Albany, except in the train, that the " eyes have been 

 picked out of the several farming centres." The reply to this 

 fallacy, said Mr. Piesse, is that the prohibitive prices set upon the 

 land by the Western Australian Land company prevented the best 

 portions being alienated. Had sales been made readily, there would 

 have been no need for the Government to step in and buy back the 

 grants in order that they might become available to the non- 

 capitalist who desired to cultivate them. The newcomer to-day is 

 the gainer by the loss the country sustained in shutting out selectors 

 from 1884 till 1891, in order that the company might select their 

 grants at leisure and with a full knowledge of the likeliest areas, and 

 also, by that wholesale alienation of the public estate he is in as 

 good a position to get a valuable holding adjacent to the railway 

 now that the colony is in the full tide of its goldlielcls' prosperity 

 as if he had arrived ten years earlier, when lucrative markets would 

 not have been open to him to the same extent that they are now. If 

 this statement is doubted, a day spent in the examination of the 

 country under the guidance of Mr. H. S. Ranford, the Govern- 

 ment land agent, whose headquarters are opposite the Katanning 

 railway station, will dispel all misgiving. 



