Wednesday, 14th April, 1886.

Present :

• The Hon. J. F. Levien, M. L. A., in the Chair;
• The Hon. W. Madden, M.L.A.,
• The Hon. J. Buchanan, M.L.C.
• Andrew Plummer, Esq., M.D.,
• D. Martin, Esq,
• James Baird, Esq.,
• Charlea YEO, Esq,
• John D. distance, Esq., Professor of Agriculture, South Australia, further examined.

1716. I see with farmyard manure the result was an enormous quantity of straw and not much wheat?—The wheat was affected by almost everything you could mention, red rust and shrivelled up—completely eaten up with disease.

1718. A misture of phosphate with ammonia gave those results? That is, we got no result from the extra quantity.

1719. The list as given here of the various manures used, and the difference is simply astonishing, as stated in your table?—Yes. These experiments have been most carefully conducted on land on an equal quality, land that had never been manured before, and carried out under my own personal supervision, and I guarantee the accuracy of the results. In some cases where they seem rather difficult to underdstand there is an explanation, I mean there are discrepancies, which there must always be in a number of experiments like that.

1720. The general results you have arrived at from your experiments is, that it is desirable that phosphates should be used for the growth of wheat?—Practically it doubles the wheat crop; in many case three to four hundred weight of mineral phosphate would be sufficient. I have not mastered the nitrogen question here, but it is a very difficult question. All I can say with regard to the practical results is that we do not seem to get any practical results from it worth what we put on in manure, Now in England it does, it is our most valuable ingredient. Here it seems to me, speaking as far as practical farming is concerned, the phosphate takes the place of nitrogen; you cannot explain it. I have not had time to work out the question thoroughly.

1721. Are mineral phosphates naturally found in the colony?—I do not know; we find them all over the world. In England they are known as coprolites, and they are found in the south of France and is America. Thousands of tons are imported into England every year, ground up and sold at about S3 a ton.

1722. Did you apply water with the nitrogen—do you not think it was the extra quantity of rain in England that made the difference? -The plants of course could not grow without it, it is an essentail thing.

1723. You say you were deficient also with stable manure; that would be on account of the want of water?—I do not think so, because the other plots were adjoining.

1724. Our experience in England is that land manured with farm-yard manure docs not give the same amount as land not manured, because if it is a wet season the manure does good, but if it is dry season it does more harm than good; the nitrogen seems to be too forcing with the superphosphates, and there does not seem to be enough moisture in the ground to support the excessive quantity of straw?-I speak of nitrogen in the form of nitrate of soda and other which produce most excellent results in England. I have not been able to get any results worth talking of from those salta. Of course is we give an excess, and in the case of farmyard manure, the straw is page 85 diseased, and the grain is diseased, and we do not get a

John D. Custance, Esq., continued, 14th April 1886.

payable grain crop.

1725. Did not yon get a payable crop from the nitrate?—No, it does not seem to give us any effect, it seems as if the plants had got a sufficient supply of nitrogen without the application of it.

1726. I thought you were speaking more of the yield of grain than of the crop of straw; the appearance of the crop was good, was it not, with the superphosphate?—It was magnificent to look on; the other where the farmyard manure was—you have seen a very bad case of red rust; then imagine one ten times worse. You would have some idea of the farmyard manure crop; that is, of course, with a very heavy dressing with farmyard manure.

1727. You spoke yesterday of root crops and so on, but there are two points that seem very remarkable. You say you grow maize; maize planted on the 26th September, with a rainfall of 1.35 inches, produced a fair crop, giving a supply of nutritious green food when chaffed with straw for horses and cows; then even with a little rainfall you would recommend that crop for that purpose (page 20 of the report for 18S5)?—Yes, it is perfectly correct. I was very much astonished, if anybody else had told me I should have thought there was some mistake, but seeing it I was bound to believe; but I must also mention that the land had been previously deep cultivated and manured. I had a special deep cultivator that I got made at Gawler. We generally run that through the ground twice, and that had been done twelve months previously, and though we had not the usual quantity of rain in the previous winter, and only the rainfall you have mentioned, we had, for what were the circumstances, a most luxuriant crop of corn (that is, Cobbott's corn) that made most excellent chaff.

1728. And the same as regards sorghum?—The sorghum was much better than the maize, because it grows three or four times. We cut ours three or four times this year, and then feed it off with sheep.

1729. And for summer feed you recommend on all farms, even in dry districts, the growth of those two things to get summer feed?—Speaking from results actually obtained this last season where there is any rain at all, if the land has been well prepared previously, and the crop properly sown, it ought to be good.

1730. Do you use bullocks or horses in the cultivator?—Horses. 1731. How many horses?—Six.

1732. What depth do you go?—We first plough five inches, then we run the cultivator one way three or four inches down, and then do it the contrary way, and try to get down another inch or two if we can, about ten inches. If I walk behind the cultivator and can thrust down a foot rule ten inches easily, I am quite satisfied.

1733. I see from your returns here you find that the keeping of pigs upon the farm is very profitable?—It has been up to the present time. We have been selling them at five guineas each, that accounts for our profit; the ordinary pigs and bacon are very fiat with us.

1734. Is there any special crop that you think the farmers could grow here, any outside crop that they do not grow which they could grow page 86

John D. Custance, Esq., continued, 14th April 1886.

profitably?—You see I know very little indeed about Victorian farming; practically I do not know what crops are grown, but I should imagine that the great point is the market. I do not know. I bave not, of course, given any consideration to the question. It is no use a farmer growing a crop unless he can sell it at a profit. I am sure many crops can be grown, as far as growing is concerned, but the difficulty is to get rid of the produce when it is grown.

1735. Have you had any personal experience, or any meant of per-sonal observation as to the growing of sugar beet for sugar on the Continent?—Not practically.

1736. It is grown, you know, very largely indeed?—I understand the process.

1737. And the quantity grown every year—I do not know for the last year or two, but it has increased enormously in the last few years something like a million and a half tons of sugar, I think, are produced from sugar beet?—That is in Germany.

1738. Yes?—We tried it in England, and it did not succeed.

1739. It is grown largely in Russia, Russia produces a great deal of wheat, and if sugar-beet growing is profitable therein a wheat growing country, should it not be profitable here to the farmers in the dry districts?—I believe sugar beet can be grown successfully because for the production of sugar you do not want large roots; small roots are better than large ones for the crystallization of sugar. The question is of course the labour—that is the difficulty. The beet can be grown very well, and sugar manufactured from it very well, but whether it will be a profitable thing, as far as the farmers are concerned, is a question that depends on the cost of labour.

1740. The season within which it would be necessary to wort the ground for beet-root, and also to take the beet up from the ground for the purpose of being sent to the factory, would be the dull season, would it not, as compared with the harvest?—You see frost will kill the young plants; they must be sown after any danger from frost is over.

1741. Then you would sow after the wheat?—Yes, we sow early in August.

1742. And you would reap after the wheat?—Yes.

1743. Therefore it would alternate very well with the wheat crop?-Very well indeed.

1744. You told us yesterday that mangolds was an excellent crop to precede the wheat crop?—Yes.

1745. Do you think then it would be feasible for farmers generally to go into the growing of beet as a fallow or as a crop to alternate with wheat? _PROvided of course that a factory were put up and roots could he sold, say at 30s. a ton and the pulp returned to the farmer and used with chaff for feeding purposes, it would pay. It would pay a farmer to sell the beet at 30S, per ton.

1746. Then upon the question of labour—could an ordinary farmer upon 000 or 700 acres of land pay wages and produce wheat at the present price?—At 4s. a bushel.

1748. If you like, put it at the present current rate at the port?—Say 4s.

1749. At the port of shipment?—Yes.

1750. Could he pay the current rate of wages, the interest upon the capital, and the cost of his land, and general expenses; could he produce the wheat at a profit?—I think anything over ten or twelve bushels, provided he had not a lees crop than twelve bushels he could, taking of course the average for a number of years; I am taking the cost of putting it into the ground, and then twelve bushels at 4s. is £2 8s. I think that would leave him a profit.

1751. A great deal of the labour necessary in beet cultivation is small labour; by small labour I mean the labour of boys or women; would it not be?—The seed would be drilled in rows; the plants could be thinned by boys with some one to look after them, and see that it is done properly, and they would have to be horse hoed, and perhaps hand hoed once if the land is tolerably clean, and then they would have to be pulled and cleaned and taken to the factory; the cultivation is very simple.

1752. And it would vastly improve the wheat producing capacity of the ground for the ensuing crop?—In this way, J think that the cultivation that would necessarily take place in growing the crop would improve the land and the change. It is well known that a change of crop is beneficial. After a root crop or say a crop like lucerne or red clover we get a better crop of wheat than if we had allowed the land to lie idle.

1753. Do you know the percentage of sugar that you would obtain from well-grown beet in a dryish district?—From 5 to 10 per cent.

1754. You say it pays better to put in a green crop of some kind than to let the land lie idle?—No, I did not mean to say that; what I meant to say was this, that supposing you take two paddocks that are equal, one yon allow to lie idle two or three years, just run a cow or two and sheep over it, another paddock you put lucerne into or clover or anything of that kind, and at the end of this period you plough both paddocks and put in wheat, you get a far better crop after the lucerne or red clover than you would from the one that lay idle—that is a known fact; no one can dispute that for a moment.

1755. I think you said that if 30s. a ton could be obtained from sugar beet it would pay?—It would pay the farmer to deliver them, a few miles from the factory.

1756. Do you know the price given upon the Continent?—£1 a ton.

1757. Why should not they pay here at £l a tou?—You get labour there at 2s. a day, here you pay 6s, a day.

1758. But they pay labour to produce wheat to compete with us?—They do not produce wheat in England to compete at the present time.

1759. But they do produce it, and they produce barley and oats to compete with us. What would be the coat to the farmer of cultivating an acre of beet-root, if he had to pay for labour—would it be 30s.?— page 88

John D. Custance, Esq., continued, 14th April 1886.

No, I would not put it down at that to the farmer It is rather difficult to say in a moment the exact cost of different operations; you must run them together. There is plough ing, and cultivating, and harrowing, and rolling, and sowing; one ought to make a calculation to be accurate upon these points as to the exact cost, Roughly, I might say it would be about 15s. to 16s., the actual cost to the farmer.

1760. It would vary in certain districts?—Yes.

1761. But £1 would be excessive, you think?—I think it would be very fair.

1762. What would be the cost of sowing and cleaning an acre?—The actual cost is given in one of these reports; on page 11 of report 1884. It is roughly £1 an acre for ploughing, harrowing, rolling, drilling and thinning.

1763. All those operations?—Yes.

1764. Is that for land that had been subsoiled—does that provide for the extra deep ploughing?—No, only one ploughing for 8s., barrowing, rolling, drilling the seed, horse hoeing, and the thinning.

1765. But it would be necessary to have the land deeply ploughed?—Not so necessary for sugar, because you do not require to grow large coarse roots; a small healthy root contains more sugar than a large root.

1766. If you put down the price at £1 then, it would be ample for the ploughing and preparing the soil?—For putting the crop into the ground for sugar it must of course vary; but I think £1 is very fair indeed.

1767. Then you have to clean it and hoe it?—I allow for that; 5s an acre is allowed here.

1768. That would be £1 5B. Then you have to take out the crop; what would it be worth to put it into bugs, say a crop of ten tons-I suppose that would he a fair crop?—For sugar I think it would because you cannot force the roots; ten tons for sugar is as good as twenty for feeding. It would cost you to pull those and to cart them £5 by contract.

1769. How much would an acre of such land be worth if it had be rented by a tenant fanner?—An acre of laud that is capable of producing ten tons?

1770. Yes?—In what locality?

1771. Any locality that would be accessible to a railway.—In Victoria or South Australia?

1772. I think the relative values would be pretty much the same; say if you like in South Australia?—In South Australia a year or two ago—I cannot say what it is worth now—you could easily have obtained a rent of 5s. or 6s. an acre for it.

1773. Say 6s. an acre; that would embrace the whole expense?—You see in this I could give you, if I had time to prepare it, the exact thing; but it is very difficult at a moment's notice to think of all the items; but, as far as I can see, that is about the thing.

1774. Then you would get ten tons of beet-root delivered at the factory at £6 lls.?—Yes, I believe that gives a very fair practical idea, page 89 but it is difficult to give every item at a moment; it looks

John D. Custance, Esq., continued, 14th April 1886.

to me a little understated.

1775. That struck me?—Yes; and yet I do not know that it is.

1776. If you were going to start fanning for yourself, what crops would you put in in South Australia?—Barley, pease, mustard, and all the root and fodder crops; all the crops that I mentioned yesterday.

1777. What I meant was this: you are a professional gentleman, and one who thoroughly understands the whole of the cultivation in every respect, and also have a view to what would pay you. My desire is to find out what line of farming you would carry out as a whole?—There is no one particular thing that would suit us out here. You see by growing a lot of fodder crops I get food for my stock, and I get some manure, and, taking the thing as a whole, one thing helps the other. It would enable me to grow say twenty bushels of wheat to the acre, where my neighbours are only growing three or four, and if I can only get rid of that at 5s. a bushel it would answer my purpose. Perhaps one particular crop or operation may be conducted at a loss, but I do not consider that, but I consider the total result of all my farming operations.

1778. That is to say you believe in varying your crops, not adopting the system of fanning that is generally carried out in South Australia, that is wheat fanning?—Of course that has come to an end in South Australia; they cannot do it; look at last year, three or four bushels; they cannot do it.

1779. I merely want to know what you would do, it might be a guide to farmers who do not understand the theory as well as you do?—I shall he very pleased to send each member of the Commission a copy of the 1885 report where it is stated.

1780. Will you kindly give the information now, as you have the paper before you. At page 19 you say that practically you would grow early baart wheat, the soft white wheat, purple straw, Ward's prolific, thousand-headed kale, mangolds, maize, and sorghum?—Yes, but that does not give the system of farming; it merely mentions the crops. The system that I advocate is the system of trying to grow one of those good varieties of wheat on a small area, but growing a double yield per acre; that is, take 50 acres, and instead of getting four or five bushels off 100 acres, get 20 off the 50 acres; and the cheapest way you can get the land into condition for that is, I think, the way I have indicated, by deep cultivation, letting in the air, and letting in the rain, so as to get moisture into the land. When it is very hard—when it is shallow ploughed—the rain runs off. The land is not in a healthy condition where it has been only cropped one crop, and never knocked about The presence of a large quantity of iron in the soil conduces to that too, because if the air is excluded it is prejudicial to vegetation; but if it has plenty of oxygen, which it gets from the atmosphere, it is beneficial. You cannot keep the land in healthy condition unless you knock it about well, and grow other crops; and I consider it is the cheapest way of doing it. Horse-hoe the land, and keep it clean; it page 90

John D. Custance, Esq., continued, 14th April 1886.

will give you the heaviest crop of wheat or barley or what-ever you grow. It is better than the fallowing of the land. 1781. So, to sum up the whole thing, you recommend first deeper cultivation?—Yes; of course, there are exceptions.

1782. Then you recommend the early maturing wheat, speaking now of a dry district?—Yes.

1783. And you recommend certain kale and other crops for fodder?—Yes.

1784. And root crops and maize and sorghum for summer feed?—Maize and sorghum for summer feed; but they belong to the same order as wheat, and they are not so good as a preparatory crop for wheat as rape and those things.

1785. And you recommend the keeping of stock upon a well-managed farm?—Yes, most decidedly Upon the few hundred acres we have we keep 500 sheep, besides pigs and horses, which of course we could not do if we did not grow crops for them, and the farmers said we could not do it.

1786. If you had a farm of your own, would you commence farming flaxes or any particular fruit trees?—I could make flax growing very profitable indeed, provided I could sell the straw as I mentioned yesterday, but I could not do as it is, because the labour costs too much in the preparation of the fibre.

1787. Do you believe in fruit growing?—Certainly; it is a very profitable branch of farming indeed.

1788. You would lay out a portion of your farm?—If I had water to irrigate the trees I certainly should. I am speaking, of course, of the place where I am living.

1789. In the northern portion of our colony the soils are very heavy. The surface soil is not more than from one to three inches in depth, as a rule, and any depth below that is a strong marly clay, full of lime and salt, but a good clay, and very flat level country. Is there any of your soil similar to that that you are working?—I do not thinks so.

1790. It is so heavy and strong that you have to work it dry. It is difficult to cultivate deep, though with steam strength or extra bullock strength it could be cultivated wet?—We have a paddock that we cannot get upon in the winter time, it is so wet.

1791. My reason for asking that question is this, that I wish to ask you what you recommend would be best suited for soil of that sort. We simply grow wheat, because the country is so dry that we call grow nothing else at present without water?—If land will grow wheat, it will grow other things.

1792. It grew me 22 bags of Calcutta oats to the acre, over eight acres last year, but I put water upon it?—Yes.

1793. Do you know Dr. Charles Davis, is he an Adelaide man?—I do not remember him; I do not think I do know him.

1794. I notice in a paper which he read before the Chamber of comm -erce, he gives as the cost of producing an acre of sugar beet £5 6s.; under the estimate which you have just ronghly submitted, that was said to be £6 11s.?—But where is that?

1796. I thought you put the entire cost of cleaning at 5s.?—There is a very great difference. I put mine down for horse hoeing, I own do four acres a day myself with a horse hoe. He has put down three hoeings, and I do not know what he means; he has put a guinea for pulling up, and I can get it done for 10s. an acre by contract, there is not much difference in the two. There is this point that should be noticed, that my estimate is based upon the actual cost to the farmer. If yon ask me to prepare you a proper estimate I should put in a great deal more, because I should put down the same price as I would charge a man for doing the work, which would he about double, as a matter of business. You see the actual cost to the farmer and the charge you would make to do the work for another person are two different things altogether.

1797. Assume that £6 11s. is the cost to the farmer?—I should not be inclined to put it at less than that.

1798. And that he produces ten tons for which he gets at the continental price, £10, is not that evidence conclusive that he would have a very handsome profit for cultivating an acre of beet?—You have got, you know, a certain amount of risk to allow for. You cannot take it as an actual fact that he will get ten tons. He might only get five or six.

1799. Is ten tons considered a heavy crop?—A fair crop of sugar beet, a very different thing from mangolds grown for cattle, would be, I consider, ten or twelve tons.

1800. You might estimate, or rather, I would ask you, could you estimate, ten tons as a fair average crop?—Of beet?

1801. Yes?—I think so.

1802. Then if you take ten tons as a fair average crop and even take an excess of what you estimate, say, take £7 in round numbers as the coat, he would have then a profit of £3 if he could find a market for his beet at £1 a ton?—Yes.

1803. You could find an unlimited market if the factories were set in motion?—A factory, of course, would have to he guaranteed the production of a certain acreage of beet; otherwise it would not pay to run a factory.

1804. I mean that there is as unlimited a market for beet-root as there is for wheat, when it is manufactured into sugar?—I imply that under the condition of having a factory that would pay the farmer to grow beet-root at £1 a ton. Of course it would pay him a great deal better to get 30s., for then he could grow a crop upon a smaller area.

1805. Does the cultivation of beet-root strike you as one that could be profitably engaged in, provided the means of manufacture are provided in the colony?—Provided the farmer gets not Jess than £1 a ton, I believe it would he profitable to the farmer to grow beet-root. At any rate, if I were offered £1 a ton I should be inclined to put in twenty or thirty acres at Roseworthy myself. I believe myself he ought to have page 92

John D. Custance, Esq., continued, 14th April 1886.

a little over £1 a ton to make it safe. I may, perhaps, mention one point, and that is, there is a plant, the French honeysuckle, that I did not mention. I believe it has been mentioned to yon. It is a leguminous plant, and grows most luxuriantly with us, and for fodder I believe it is a very good thing indeed, I did intend to mention it. We have grown it most successfully.

1806. Even with your small rainfall?—Yes.

1807. It grows like the clover, does not it?—Very much like a strong red clover, with a very handsome flower, called Maltese clover. That is the popular name with the farmers with us.

The witness withdrew.

Adjourned sitie die.