Irrigation Farming in Australia. 25 



Victoria. 



The Government authorities will, as has been said, undertake 

 a certain amount of initial work for a new settler, such as channel- 

 ling, grading, and seeding, house-building, and procuring dairy 

 stock. But the amount of work the Government will do for him in 

 this way is limited, and necessarily so. No settler can ever become 

 a farmer by deputy ; and besides, even on terms, this all costs money. 

 If the settler does his own clearing, fencing, channelling, he can in 

 three or four months' time call in the Government inspector to 

 calculate the value of this work, which all ranks as improvements. 

 Even the smallest and roughest shed he builds for his tools, or to 

 shelter his horse or cow, will be accounted as an improvement. In 

 this way he ought certainly to be able to show $576.00 worth of 

 improvements on the virgin country, and the Government will 

 advance him in money 60 per cent, of these improvements, or, say, 

 $345.60.. The money thus advanced is to be repaid on fifteen years' 

 terms. The superior advantage of receiving $345.60 over having 

 to pay $576.00 needs no pointing out. With the $345.60 the settler 

 can buy stock, or trees with which to plant other portions of his 

 50 acres. 



The cost of clearing in Rochester and Shepparton districts is 

 very small, and often $1.20 an acre will pay for it. This is where 

 the only timber is old, ringbarked, dead stuff. The land is valued 

 at from $38.40 to $72.00 an acre unimproved, and the settler buys 



HORSES ARE EASILY KEPT IN GOOD CONDITION WHERE LUCERNE is AVAILABLE 



it at that price. His annual payment represents about 6 per cent, 

 per annum on the unimproved annual value, and he pays for the 

 land in 31^ years of instalments. He then gets the freehold. The 

 annual water rate is in most districts $1.20 for each acre foot, and 



