4 
guava, figs, tamarind, date palm, cocoanut trees, oranges, and 
lemons, which all thrive well. 
In a report on the capabilities of the East Kimberley district, 
Mr. R. Helms, then biologist of the Bureau of Agriculture, said:— 
“The greatest prosperity of the country will begin when the 
cultivation of specially tropical products is taken up in earnest. 
It will then be that the country becomes populated, for a couple of 
hundred acres, well tilled and planted with suitable crops, enables a 
man to acquire an independency. The country possesses not only 
the rare advantage of being perfectly healthy, but the land best 
suited for the growth of tropical products is free from timber. It, 
therefore, requires no coloured labour to produce cotton, sugar, 
cocoa, tobacco, rubber, or fibre, and other profitable articles of com- 
merce. Europeans can do the work, and no great capital is required 
to prepare the land, the grubbing of trees in a tropi:al forest being 
always a great expense. Moreover, irrigation can be carried out at 
a minimum of expense. In a number of places it will be found that 
water can be conserved in such a way as to enable large areas to be 
watered by gravitation; but where that method is impracticable, 
windmills may effectively be employed, as a steady breeze generally 
blows throughout the day.” 
My own observations made in the course of official explorations 
to ascertain the agricultural capabilities of the Nor’-West and of the 
tropical Kimberleys lead me, with some reservations, to support 
these views, and whenever population is attracted to these little 
known provinces of Australia important settlement may be looked 
forward to in favourable places where easy transport and com- 
munication are provided. 
The section of Western Australia that will be more particularly 
considered in this handbook is that comprised between the Mur- 
chison River, 50 miles North of Champion Bay, lat. 28deg. S., to 
King George’s Sound, lat. 35deg. S., and an imaginary line enclos- 
ing a somewhat triangular-shaped territory, about 50 miles broad at 
the Murchison end to 300 miles at its base, from the Leeuwin to 
Esperance. 
Such area is shown on the maps issued by the Lands Depart- 
ment of Western Australia as the South-West Division. 
That a great extent. of this country is admirably suited for vine 
and fruit growing is abundantly demonstrated by the suecess which 
has accompanied the enterprise of settlers in the various districts 
of the State. 
The variety of climatic conditions and soil make it possible to 
grow in this division of Western Australia almost any fruit of the 
cool-temperate as well as semi-tropical climates. 
A better understanding of the requirements which underlie the 
pursuit of modern fruit-growing—one of the most interesting and 
profitable branches of agronomy—brings out several features in the 
