io8 



The va-lley of the Marradong through to the Williams river is 

 comparatively narrow strip of good land, 40 miles long, timberec 

 with wando, white gum, blue and red gums. It also grows wattle 

 sapling gums, jam trees, and black boys. The soil is chiefly a light- 

 colored loam that has been proved to be so good for the production 

 of cereals that when the railway is made it will not pay to run stock 

 upon the better parts of it. The land is easily cleared level enough 

 to plough, yet is well drained, and has a clay sub-soil. For 305. per 

 acre all except the large trees can be taken out, and for ^3 th< 

 wando and gum trees will be included in the grubbing. At Marra- 

 dong the land is generally of a chocolate color, and this portion 

 regarded as the pick of the Williams district ; the heaviest croj 

 are garnered there, as a rule. On the flats of the Williams, toucl 

 ing the river, Messrs. Hamersley, Cornwall, and others, in picked 

 spots, get quite as good a return as any of the Marradong growei 

 This, however, is the exception, as the Williams land is more prone t< 

 run light both in color and quality, and to suffer from a bed of gravel 

 intervening between the top soil and the clay. Where the light 

 land is met with the timber is light also, so that what is saved in the 

 cost of clearing might be advantageously expended on manure. So 

 far, with the exception of a little stable manure, fertilisers have not 

 been used owing to the distance which bonedust or guano would 

 have to be carted. The practice is to crop the land only every third 

 year, the fields being rested and fallowed for 12 months each in 

 turn. During the resting year sheep are turned into the paddocks. 

 The stock do well on the arable land, and their droppings help to 

 keep the ground in good heart. The contour of the country 

 between the hills, which are topped with ironstone ridges, is undu- 

 lating enough to prevent any portion of it being soured by surplus 

 water, yet not steep enough in any part to allow the top soil to 

 washed axvay by a heavy rainfall. The valley is indeed a fertili 

 river flat, high enough to escape clanger in flood, and broad enougl 

 to make an immense cornfield, 



The Crown Lands department has courteously furnished sorm 

 statistics showing what scope there is for settlement in the Willia 

 district. There are in the possession of private owners ioo,< 

 acres, within live miles of the main road from Camballing to th< 

 Williams river, a distance of about 40 miles. Of this area 60,000 

 acres belong to farmers and gra/ici s, and 40,000 acres, which were 

 part of the land grants of the Western Australian Land company, 

 as consideration for the making of the Beverley Albany railway, 

 have- recently reverted to the Government owing to their purch; 

 of the line. Between Camballing and Boranning, private estates 

 comprise 19,000 acres, and prior to the resumption of the land 

 grants the company held 26,000 acres in this neighbourhood. 

 From Boranning to the Williams bridge, 22 miles further on, there 

 are 41,000 acres selected, and the company had 14,000 acres, 

 which may be chosen by new comers under the liberal land regu- 



