November 2, 1891.] THE TROHCAL AQHIOULTURIST, 
349 
with each acre of laud he purchases, aud he becomes 
owner of the plant to that extent. These shares can 
never afterwards be separated from the land. In 
process of time the whole management will fall into 
the hands of the settlers ; till then Messrs. Chaffey 
manage the irrigation. They have already put up 
about th e biggest pumping plant in the world at 
Mildura, and are lifting their water at a cost of aljotit 
a penny per 1,000 cubic feet per 40 feet lift. The 
present annual water rate is 6 shillings per acrs 
occupied, and it will probably not exceed 10 shilling 
at any time. With each acre sold there goes a share 
in the Irrigation Company, and to each share is 
attached the lialjilitj' to water rate, so that a buyer 
on speculation may leave his land idle, if he so 
wishes, but he pays the annual water-rate of 6 shil- 
lings whether the land is idle or cultivated : this does 
not pay the mere speculator. 
The Company is making canals, roads and bridges, 
has put up foundries and workshops ; at Mildura it 
has commenced an Agricultural College, which the 
Government concession binds it to endow with one- 
fifteenth of all the irrigated land ; the Renmark 
College will follow very soon. It has imported 
powerful machinery. A canning and raisin drying 
and packing factory is already started at Mildura ; 
another will follow at Kenmark. Electric lighting 
and telephones are in use. Telegraphic communica- 
tion is established with both Melbourne and Adelaide. 
Special freights are already obtainable by the colonies, 
and when they are fairly developed they will be 
able to charter their own fleets and trains. 
The Messrs. Chaffey have imported skilled irrigat 'rs, 
fruit canners, raisin finishers, machinery, and packers 
from California. There are enormous nvu'series of 
vines, prunes, zante currants, apricots, olives, &c., 
already established. The mass of their combined 
products v.'ill give the settlers an enormous advantage 
in marketing, in freights and cost of handling : the 
finishing and packing mider skilled supervision with 
the best appliances will give them the first place in 
every market they enter. * * * * 
Thus it is that the purchaser buys not only rich 
land and all its irrigation plant, but he buys with 
it good roads and every advantage in preparing and 
marketing his product. He reaps the rewards of a 
pioneer and does not sirffer the solitude, the hard- 
ships, the painful burden of purely individual labour 
which beset tne ordinary pioneer. He may earn 
money elsewhere while his orchard or vineyard is 
growing. On the other hand, the promoters con- 
centrate all the work in a comparatively small area, 
and can do everything very economically, and probably 
spend under £14 an acre on the land : the remainder 
of the value is given by their organisation, their care- 
ful planning and unremitting work. The Blessrs. 
Chaffey are singularly capable men, as engineers, as 
financiers, as organisers they are hard to beat; the 
Californian irrigation colonies founded by them at 
Ettiwanda and Ontario have been conspicuously suc- 
cessful, even in that country of irrigation colonies, and 
if they do make £6 an acre by it they not only thorough- 
ly earn the money, but also help others to make a 
great deal more than that. And mark this ; their 
initial expenses are enormous : for instance they 
have already expended quite £100,000 on irrigation 
plant alone at Mildura, and these cannot be recouped 
if much of the land remains unsold : they on'v;', there- 
fore, make it pay the purchaser, aud it is to tlieir 
interest to add every material and social attraction in 
order to quicken the stream of settlers, for the faster 
they come in the sooner is the return of money spent ; 
they are therefore ruined if these schemes are not 
founded on sound lines, and have put their own 
fortmies to the stake. I am as absolutely sure of the 
soundness as they are themselves. 
Oranges and Icuions give about the highest ulti- 
mate profits, but cost most to put in and take five 
years to good bearing, as against four years for vine- 
yards and most other fruits. * # * it 
Oranges will cost fllO more to plant, and require 
another year's outlay before good returns come in ; 
10 acres of oranges and lemons in bearing may thus be 
estinuvted to cost ifC40. For this outlay you can 
reckon on a minimum net return of £150 per annum 
from grapes, and certainly £200 per annum from 
oranges and lemons, even if you use hired labour for 
the whole of the work, which no man should do. A 
man who took over the orchard into his own hands 
after the first year could save most of the expenditure 
afterwards, and get a higher return by selling cuttings, 
growing a little lucerne, &c. Thus a father who 
lays out £1,000 on 20 acres for his son puts the young 
man into an assured £S00 a year, with light out-door 
work in a pleasant climate, amid the most favourable 
social surroundings. A man who lays out £2,000 on 
40 acres for his declining years, and spends £1,000 in 
a house, has a valuable estate bringing in well over 
£600 a year to leave his children, has interesting out- 
door work, and a most social life. If he has 
daughters they will not stay with him long, but need 
not go far, as the country will be thickly settled with 
thriving young men who seek for wives, as young men 
will do. 
The social life is a peculiarity of these settlements ; 
nearly all the men have money, some have a good 
deal, an extraordinary high proportion are men of 
birth and education. At Mildura Lord Banfurly has 
put in about 200 acres for himself and sons, and 
there are several retired Melbourne merchants and 
numbers of young college men settled down already. 
Renmark is behindhand in extent, but Lord Deramore 
has taken up a large piece, and several retired military 
men are at work already too. A steady stream of 
settlers, well-to-do and mostly gentlemen, has set in 
from England. There is rabbit and duck shooting to 
any extent ; the great cost of fencing is due to the 
number of rabbits about, as they have to be kept out 
by strips of 1^ inch galvanised iron wire netting. 
There is fishing in the Murray (a noble river liere, 
over 1,000 feet wide) mostly bait I fear. I saw several 
great Murray cod pulled out, 3 to 12 lb., and excellent 
eating. I saw a lot of smaller fish rising in a back 
water one golden evening, and there may be a lot to 
be done with fly and spoon. 
It is to be noted that a great number of successful 
and enterprising colonial fruit and wine growers have 
started places for themselves or their sons. Taken 
all in all I have seen nothing like it, nor heard of 
anything equal to it, either for one's own old age or 
for a man's sons and daughters. There is one kind of 
man who must »ot come here, that is the man who 
cannot get on without first-rate domestic servants: 
such things are not to be had; the people are too 
rich, any decent looking girl with housewifely qualities 
will marry about as soon at she likes, and marry into 
a comfortable house of her own. A man's great s"tand- 
by must be his wife and daughters (till marriageable) 
if he has no womenfolk he make an arrangement (or 
marries) for his meals, and wants no servant in the 
house. Domestic life is simple and rural. For youno- 
men there is constant foot-ball, cricket, bicyclino-and 
all manner of out-door amusements ; for all there are 
libraries, reading rooms and plenty of society. Every 
man is busy all day, and busy with a pleasant sense of 
being uncommonly well paid for it. The current 
wages in ordinary work are 0,s. M. to 9.s. per day. 
Fi;/ures rcf/aidiiif/ Mil dura. —The agreement with the 
Victorian Government was signed on 21st OctolDer 
1886, and Messrs. Chaffey began real work on the 
place in August 18S7, having by then got out machinery 
and put up temporary sheds of sorts. Up to end of 
June 1S91 the company had altogether expended 
£198,000 on permanent improvements, and their 
average pay sheets are £7,000 per month for wages 
alone. One of their pumping engines is a triple- 
expansion four-oylindered engine of 1,000 indicated 
horse power, directly driving four centrifugal pumps 
of 6 feet diameters, with 20-inch inlet and outlet pipes 
and from which four such cUier pumps are to be driven • 
by belts when required, the whole plant being capable 
of throwing 120,000 to 140,000 gallons per minute when 
required. There are four traction engines for scarify- 
ing, three for grubbing up_ trees. The Agricultm-'al 
College foundations are laid, and the building will 
cost £5,000. The Blechanics' Institute under erection 
will cost £3,000. There are 300 miles of channels 
nuxde, 130 miles are from 8 to 25 feet wide and the 
remainder small distriljutwiea. Cementing the bed^ 
