i6 7 



make his holding profitable. A piece of land when first selected 

 requires, at least, all the work of one man to make anything of it. 

 With every desire to see the land settled, I think people would be 

 ill-advised to select if they have not some means which will pay 

 expenses and support them while they are getting their ground in 

 going order, and enable them meanwhile to give all their energy to 

 that work. They should at least have enough to buy implements 

 and horses, and tide them over a year. In the southern district, 

 where a tolerably large piece of land would be needed, in order that 

 a little grazing might be combined with cultivation, I think .500 is 

 little enough for an applicant to have in the bank. For working a 

 garden block for fruit and vegetables, for which the south-west is 

 so well adapted, a much smaller sum would suffice, because intense 

 culture would allow of a small block being handled with profit. I 

 know of one instance in which a man working on an orchard of his 

 own in his spare time and doing outside labor, has prospered very 

 well, because he is able to bring his place up to a state in which it 

 can have a rest and be improving all the time he is engaged 

 elsewhere. But there is no resting time on a farm, every year, a 

 farmer, if he is to do any good, wants more land to cultivate. 



" Speaking of the market for produce, fruit and vegetables are 

 sought for by buyers' travellers. Hay and chaff have of late 

 readily found a buyer at remunerative prices ; but I have known the 

 market to be fully supplied, or even more coming to hand than was 

 immediately required. The farmer has to seek for his buyer ; the 

 orchardist and the vegetable grower find the purchasers come to 

 them. Just now (July, 1897) there is a scarcity of fodder in conse- 

 quence of growers being engaged in farming operations, and not 

 having time to cut their hay into chaff, and also of the dry season 

 that has been experienced in the eastern colonies. I believe chaff 

 has lately been sold at ^9 per ton. A few years ago it brought 10 

 per ton. The time is coming, through the large areas of land that 

 are being cleared, when fodder will decline in price. I would 

 counsel growers who are not close to a railway, to cut their wheat 

 crops for wheat during this year's harvest, for it is probable that 

 wheat will pay as well, if not better than hay. At any rate, the wise 

 course to follow would be for some of each crop to be cut for wheat 

 and some for hay. It should not be forgotten that before the gold- 

 fields were discovered prices for fodder were low, and that the de- 

 mand, at the present yearly rate of the increase of production, will 

 sooner or later be again overtaken. On the other hand, the 

 market of the colony is the best one I know of for farmers, and they 

 now enjoy what the early settlers did not, an enormous advantage 

 in the extension of the railway service. I do not, however, regard 

 the tariff of freights as an indulgent one for farmers. 



" It is hard to say what the Swan district will grow to the best 

 advantage, but you may take it that the two things that pay best are 

 those which are mostly grown, namely, fruit and hay. These grow 



