Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/120

 nearly a million acres in the hands of the Western Australia Land Department, the preliminary to the issue of certificates of title.

In the evening of the same day on which we quitted the Benedictine monastery we reached Gingin, which is an agricultural township forty-eight miles from New Norcia and fifty-four miles from Perth. We had to wait here till the following morning, when a special train was to run us to Guildford, where the Midland and the Government lines join, some nine miles from the capital, which, with its select little society and quiet ways, re­ minds one of some English cathedral town rather than of one of the pushing metropolises of the eastern colonies. I have, how­ ever, said nothing of Gingin, of which the future settler will hear a good deal. Dr. Robertson speaks of Gingin as "one of the prettiest and best settled districts in the colony." Proceeding, he says, "A considerable area of land, probably 2,500 acres, is under cultivation. Gingin Brook is a clear, copious, perennial stream. The rainfall averages twenty-five inches. Principally wheat is cultivated, and the yield averages about twenty bushels per acre in an ordinary season; but oats and barley grow well; for the latter a good market does not yet exist. No fertilisers are used. The land is fallowed. No attention has apparently been generally paid to the land that yields the best crops of wheat or of barley. Potatoes and root crops, such as beet and mangold, grow luxuriantly, but are not cultivated as crops. Vegetables of all kinds and of great size are raised without trouble. The finest and largest oranges I have ever seen are grown here. Citrons, lemons, and vines grow luxuriantly, and, if cultivated on intelligent principles, would materially augment the returns from the land. A few cattle are fed, but if root crops, peas, cabbages, beet, mangolds, &c., were raised, with the advantage of ensilage and the railway, a profitable dairying trade could be conducted."

I was not much impressed with the country between Gingin and Guildford as seen from the railway. Dr. Robertson says: "The railway from Guildford to Gingin passes over a level and uninteresting sand plain, covered with worthless vegetation and surcharged with water. A few miles to the east, however, and