26 Mr. Garwood Alston.— [Oct. 28, 
miles, and the supply furrow is uine and a half miles long; the total 
expenditure on the dam and furrows being perhaps twenty-six thousand 
pounds: I have no means of arriving at the exact cost. 
There being no permanent streams in the neighbourhood the dam 
is entirely dependent on periodical floods for its catch of water, and 
the area cultivated is again dependent on the quantity of water at 
command in April or May (the beginning of the sowing and end of 
our rainy season) of each year. There were sown in 
1885 a trial patch only 
1886 = 200 morgen 
1887 == 600 __,, 
1888 == 300 __s,, 
1889 == 90- ,, 
1890 = 300 _,, 
1891 = 3800  ,, 
or say an average of 8300 morgen per annum for six years. 
The depth of water, to sill of discharge pipe, caught in 1887 was 
thirteen feet but the area sown was limited by the size of the 
distributing furrow, and a very much larger area could have been 
put under crops during that season had the furrow been of sufficient 
size. Ido not think however that Mr. Gamble was at the time aware 
that our only possible paying crop for a large area would be that 
of wheat and that in consequence the whole area under cultivation 
must be soaked once to make ready for ploughing during the two 
months of May and June, a practice which causes the expenditure 
of water at that time to be far above the average for the remainder 
of the. year; and this practice being unknown to Mr. Gamble 
causes a limitation of the possible irrigable area with the present 
dimensions of the main furrow for distribution of water. But it 
happened that in 1888 we suffered partial drought and it was due 
to the fact of our having a large surplusage of water from 1887 that 
we were enabled to cultivate 300 morgen for the 1888 season, and 
although little consideration will shew that an average of 300 morgen 
of land is but a small area to be cultivated below so large a reservoir 
it is only half the quantity which can be irrigated by existing furrows. 
The fault lies in the average catch of rain or flood water. 
The total area draining towards the dam is 480 square miles, of 
which some eighty square miles drain into small farmers’ dams which 
were made before Van Wyk’s Vley was thought of. In a prize essay 
