SIX MONTHS IN AUSTRALIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3743, 8 December 1925, Page 6

SIX MONTHS IN AUSTRALIA.

IMPRESSIONS AND CON TRASTS.

BUSH LIFE IN THE WEST.

By An Anglo-Indian Journalist.

n. The West Australian Government is carrying out a vigorous policy of settlement and it has the good fortun© not to be hampered by th© eoaroity of land. If only its rainfall "ere more evenly distributed and the country riot quite so flat, it would be the greatest ganary in the Southern Hemisphere. In fart it may yet It© that if only the railways can keep pace with settlement. A good deal has been written about group settlement and probably the wholesale emigration of families and groups from the Old Country to tuke up land on this system hoe done much to advertise the country in Great Britain, but by far the greater part of the country is being settled on the normal conditional purchase system. This is llmplioity itself. The [.and Office, a very live wire indeed, publishes maps from week to week which are placed outside the office In Perth and also nt the District Land Sffioes showing the position of the various looks which are thrown open for selection end the immigrant oan lake his choice from kny dUtifat wnioh he fancies, and by roferonoe to a general weather map of the country ha nan ascertain Ihe mean annual kainfali of that district ond decide for himtblf whether it is worth hi* while to apply ler the block. On the map the value of

t’e ‘3 marked. It may vary from 7s per lc. t* f > 12s 6d, according to its nearness to the railway line and its rainfall and the nature of the soil and bush timber to be cleared, s -eh details being supplied by the Land OfT ?. The land is the cheapest to be obtained anywhere in Australia, so much so that many of the eastern States farmers and their sons are going over to invest their capital in the west. The production of the land, of course, varies. In the socalled wheat belt the yield on the eastern fringe is about 3 bags, or 9 bushels, to the acre while the yield in the wetter districts is about 12 busnels to the acre. Tl\e usual holding is about 1000 acres and the country is not surveyed for much beyond 15 miles from the railway since owing to the lack of water, roads, and cheap transport any greater distance is impracticable. As a matter of fact no settler is advised to gel any further than 10 miles from a railway. METHOD OF OBTAINING LAND. The applicant for a block fills in a form and in due course is invited to attend a Land Board sitting in Perth as well as the centre of the district in which the particular selections are situated. If the block is a desirable one with access to water and railway and good land there may be os many as 70 applicants and in tnat case the examination of each applicant is carried through conscientiously to enable the board to decide who has the best claim, by experience and deserts. The successful applicant must enter upon the residcnco of his section within six months. No payment to the Land Office for the land beyond the application fee of about £1 12s 6a is required of him for five years and in the meantime any clearing and fencing he may eflfoct is an improvement on which the State Agricultural Bank is ever ready to make advances, 60 that the impeounious settler may

get money with which to buy his implements, fencing, material for building a house, and other necessities. The bank has inspectors whose duties comprise a regular tour of the farms in their circle to ascertain what improvements have been effected and to make the necessary advances to the “cockies.” Considerable latitude is shown by these officials and many a struggling “cocky” owes his existence to their goodwill. So long as a settler shows that he is making a serious attempt to improve his holding he is • given every reasonable assistance but, if it is noticed by his neighbours that the new settler is doing next to nothing with his block it is optional for anyone to apply for the forfeiture of his block. In consequence, many forfeitures are announced in the Gazette week by week, for the simplicity of the method by which a block is obtained, tends to tempt many people quite unsuited to the life to take up blocks and then just neglect them. The, payments for land are spread over a period of 25 years and so also are the payments to the Agricultural Bank, but until suoh payments are discharged the bank has a lien over the estate ana acts as a mortgagor. The developed Blocks that have been abandoned by the farmers fall into the hands of the bank whoso business it is to dispose of them again as improved holdings. HEAVY CLEARING.

The work of clearing is almost heartbreaking. Tho popular impression that a large part of Australia is desert is quite erroneous. Pails of the country between Kalgoorlio and Port Augusta and up in the Northern Territory mny be lightly timbered or merely oovered with scrub, but the greater part of Australia is heavily timbered from coast to coast with every conceivable variety of eucnlypt. I was astonished to snd that the 375 miles of railway whloh connect Perth with Kalgoor-

lie run through a lane cut straight through a solid forest of gums, except where the country is under cultivation. The trees varied in height and thickness, but there was bush, as far as the eye could see, right into the Golden. City. In the wheat belt, where I elected to try mv apprenticed hand ast bush clearing, w e nad salmon gum. gimlet trees, ti-trees, morrel, boree. and what is known in the west as scrub, though this name applies to something quite different in Queensland as I afterward discovered. When people think of West Australia their minds probably turn to thoughts of jarrah end the immense trees of the forests m the wet south-west. These trees, however, are confined to the extreme southwest between Albany and Busselton, where the rainfall is as much as 40 inches. These monsters take a deal of clearing and the sottlers who are building themselves homes in those parts and making dairy farms round Denmark and Pemberton have no small job. In fact, it is only by the group system that the work of clearing can be carried out.’ It is too heartbreaking for the individual "cocky.” The bush, however, in the drier areas, and notably in the wheat belt, where the rainfall varies from 12 inches to seven inches a year, is much lighter and the salmons and morrel are the worst timbers to be met with so far as ohopping is concerned. These do not as a rule go to more than four feet in diameter, and at that size they are usually rotten, though many are quite solid and have to be taokled with a crosscut saw after a preliminary scarfing with an axe. The “cooky” as soon as he gets to his selection ereots himsolf a "humpy.” The most popular is one made of green poles hung with sacking or "super” bags, and roofed with several sheets of galvanised iron, the lattor m order to collect any rain water for his precious supply, whioh

>s kept 111 a 100-gallon lank, and when ha can afford it a 1000-gallon tank. lie then proceeds to lay in a store of groceries an<L if near a town, a regular supply of fresS meat, and bread is ordered, while he balances the diet with potatoes and onion# and very rarely fresh vegetables, for cauliflowers and asparagus are not commonplaces in the bush. He wili also have to make some sort of arrangement with hif neighbours if ho does not jun to a FoitJ car or pony and cart to get his water supply replenished from the pipeline or nearest surface water. Then he starts clearing probably on somebody else's block first m order to get the experience as well as muenneeded money. A good bushman in that country reckons to be able to clear some three to four acres a week. A superman might be able to do an acre a day to hit own axe, but I have not met him, and if he di 1 he wouldn’t keep it up very long for the monotony of life in the bush make# it imperative to have a fling now and again, and the man who has been clearing fof weeks on end is apt, as soon as he get# some loose change ir. his pocket, to rush off to the nearest town and have a “beano.” A BUSH-CLEARER’S LIFE. A bush-clearer usually camps in a tent. My friend—the son of a farmer in Eng land who had come out to take up landshared a 14 by 10 tent with me. We had * fairly decent equipment, and although wo were both novices at the game we managed to dear 48 acres in 10 weeks and earn £3O between us We were told that we should make nothing at it, but we certainly enjoyed robust health, the novelty of the surroundings, the pure air. and the charm of bush sunsets and the majesty of the starry skies at night. The comradeship* of the bush men was one of the greatest attractions of the life. We discoverei there was an esprit de corps and an ui,written law of etiquette and honour which made it perfectly safe to leave our tents alone and unguarded for several days if necessary without fear of anything being stolen. Hospitality was universal, and some of the most delightful evenings were spent sitting round a roaring camp fire with our neighbours smoking and yarning. People borrowed tools and food from each other freely, and everybody displayed an alacrity to oblige each othor. Dress -was reduced to the simplest elements, and in re gard to cleanliness, ag before mentioned, there might have beep room for improvements, For ourselves we always spent Sunday morning having a washing day and so ensured at least a complete change of clean clothing. Cooking was not usually brilliant, but I was lucky in finding tha* my mate had a special gift in that direction, and very soon abandoned this selfimposed duty in his favour or rather divided it. He did fancy cooking and turned out the most delectable ginger cakes and sweets while I carried out the more prosaic duties of boiling the meat and preparing the vegetables. We fed well and had plenty of variety. We reckoned that it cost us £1 a week each to live, and as we earned 30s each we made a profit on our work of 10s a week each. This, of course, takes no account of the capital outlay on the tent and camp kit, but as they could be sold afterwards the cost need not be included All classes of men took up land, but naturally those who had been farmers or son» of farmers were at an advantage against those who were not. Round us were men whose previous occupations had been engineering, bank-clerking, civil servants, army officers, and in one case • drayman in the employ of Crosse and Blackwell, of London. Ine last-mentioned man had arrived early in the district, and obtained a 1000-acre block for the asking and had landed with his entire capital of £2 10s. How he carried on in his little humpy and got seme 40 acres under cultivation was one of those little miracles of the land, but. it was largely due to the goodwill of his neighbours and the trade*, men.