Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/54

 acres, situated in the Lakeside district, about seven miles from Albany, on the Great Southern Railway. It has been cut up into farms varying from 10 to 100 acres. The land in the valleys is a rich peaty soil suitable for potatoes, onions, and all sorts of market garden produce, maize, oats, barley, lucerne, and rye grass. The hills are timbered with banksia, sheaoak, and jarrah. The soil on them is of a lighter nature, but owing to the heavy rainfall it is very productive, and well adapted for the growing of fruits of all sorts. The terms on which the improved farms can be obtained are easy. The land can either be bought outright, leased, or paid for by equal instalments on the deferred payment system. The climate is everything that can be desired; in fact, it is admitted to be about the best in Australia.

As Mr. Powell has gone to great expense in improving and laying out the Eastwood estate, he naturally seeks to recoup himself in the price of the land, and it thus requires capital to come to terms with him. As, however, the better parts of the property are rather suitable for gardens than for farms, a small area only is requisite, and the returns are likely to be much heavier than in the case of ordinary agriculture. I can­ not disguise from myself that Mr. Powell will have more or less to act the philanthropist in relation to this portion of his land purchases, as he has gone to an outlay with steam ploughs, and other "latest" cultivators, for which he is hardly likely to be speedily or, indeed, ever recouped. His work at Eastwood has been one of experiment and exploitation, and I do not think I misjudge him in believing that it was not wholly the idea of personal profit which induced him to go in for a venture which, he may have the satisfaction of feeling, will benefit the colony even if it leaves him somewhat out of pocket. I may add that in addition to the general local and colonial market for garden produce, there are the mail and other steamers to be supplied with fruit and vegetables by the future horticulturists of Eastwood and other similar localities. It is true that at present the P. & O. and other great liners replenish their stocks at Adelaide and the eastern ports; but this has only grown into a custom through the impossibility of getting