16 
the application of phosphates. In the south-west the Yate tree 
(Z. cornuta, La Billardiére) grows on such land. 
Fresh water can be obtained almost anywhere on this forma- 
tion at a depth of 12-35ft. on reaching the pipe-clay bottom, whilst 
springs often break out on their own accord after ring-barking the 
forest trees or clearing the land for cultivation. 
CHOCOLATE SOIL. 
Known locally as the “jam” land along the Avon valley and 
Great Southern Railway, or “wattle” country on the Irwin-Chapman 
and other northern areas. This kind of soil is very widely distri- 
buted, and extends from the Murchison and the Irwin over the 
Victoria Plains, up the Avon Valley to Wagin and Katanning. It 
is overgrown at the north by the “wattle,” and southwards by the 
“raspberry jam tree,” a kind of Myall (Acacia acuminata, Ben-- 
tham). On the whole, this belt of country is drier than the preced- 
ing one, but much easier to clear and to cultivate, and eminently 
suitable for the cultivation of fruit-trees and vines, as well as of 
cereal crops and mixed farming. 
The soil consists of a chocolate loam, sometimes of great depth, 
varying in texture from a heavy loam, where in its natural state the 
“York gum” tree (E. loxophleba, Bentham) predominates over the 
wattle or the jam tree. Such land makes splendid corn land, and is 
more generally found on the slopes of the undulating country which 
constitutes its home. On the flats the soil is often of a lighter 
character, and there the wattle or the jam bushes predominate. On 
the river banks and in patches over the country, a lighter loam still 
is found and is generally overgrown by the above-named trees, in 
company with the banksias, of which there exists several varieties, 
and at times with the “sheaoaks” (Casuarinas) and the broom bush 
or “stinkwood” (Jacksonia cupulifera), which generally indicates a 
moist soil, Cattle and horses, as well as sheep and goats, like the 
foliage of this pasture bush. 
Considered on the whole, the chocolate loam or wattle and jam 
or York gum land is one of the best balanced in the elements of 
plant food in the South-West districts of the State, and were it not 
for, in some seasons, a scanty rainfall, would carry enormous crops 
of grain, hay, or fruit. Fields not long cleared and cultivated yield, 
in average seasons 16-26 bushels of wheat to the acre, and 30-40 
ewts. of hay. Richer patches of land occur in this country, where 
the ‘‘manna gum’’ tree grows (Acacia microbotrya), noted for the 
gum it yields. Those patches are generally of voleanie origin and of 
great fertility; blackboys of very large size also grow on such soil. 
At places over that country salt patches are not uncommon, and 
generally follow up the clearing of the land. Their occurrence is 
