ARTESIAN WATER IN N. S. WALES. 89 



the Government, or of those Crown tenants who essayed to find 

 it, the main and only object being the provision of water for stock. 

 The results in this direction have far exceeded anticipations, and 

 miles of ditches, carrying the flowing water through enormous 

 paddocks have been made. 



The other aspect of the question, namely the closer settlement 

 in small holdings in the neighbourhood of bores, near centres of 

 population, has been dealt with by the Government in the experi- 

 mental farms etc. at the Native Dog and Pera Bores, and is rapidly 

 passing beyond the range of experiment. In the initiation of an 

 experiment, such as this, much consideration had to be given to 

 the many questions arising in connection with it. In the first 

 place there existed a widespread and ill-defined fear, now rapidly 

 passing away, that artesian water was unsuitable for irrigation, 

 a,nd that there would be no market for produce : and that accord- 

 ing to the experience of a pastoral population used to large 

 areas of land, the possibility of doing anything with so small an 

 area as twenty acres was very remote. The Department had to 

 avail itself of the experience obtained in other countries, and to 

 enquire and decide what area the class of people it expected to 

 obtain as settlers could cope with single handed. 



The evidence furnished by the wonderful development at Fresno 

 in the San Joacquin Valley, California, is most important, and it 

 largely guided the Department. In 1871 five hundred emigrants 

 from the East settled there and secured some 5,000 acres of land, 

 which was divided into small vineyards for the cultivation of the 

 raisin grape : the progress made has been phenomenal, and Fresno 

 stands as one of the most prosperous settlements in California, 

 and a striking example of what intense culture upon small areas 

 means. The land originally cost 2*50 dollars per acre. The 

 population within twenty years reached 100,000 souls, and Fresno 

 city is to day a well laid out town, with all modern improvements, 

 of some 25,000 inhabitants, surrounded by an area of 20,000 acres 

 of vineyards. The condition of this land at the time of the incep- 

 tion of the settlement is described as follows : — " The entire area 



