Date: July 30th, 1914
Address: Elemore, Cowcowing, via Korrelocking
From: Mr. & Mrs. Frank Lodge and Family
To: George
Dear George
Just a line in reply to yours. Very pleasant to note that you are doing well and wish to. I would not bring any body out here. Some do well and some do very badly. Some have come from home and can't get a job at all. Wages vary from 15/0 a week and keep, up to 35/0 (for) good men, men that can handle a team of horses from 6 to 10 in a team, himself. But the most of the work is done on contract, clearing heavy timber at £1.0.0 per acre by sawing at a penny a bag. Real good men can make 10/0 a day the most of men can saw about 60 to 70 bags a day and waste no time.
The labour party is in power now and the country is up side down and they have brought that many men from home. The country is only young. It wants more men with money and it is then alright.
We would not come home again to make a living for nothing. Again, we had very bad luck when we first came here. We fell into a drought and lost about £600.00 the first two years, but last year we had about 900 bags of wheat that I sold at 10/0 a bag 500. I am just going to cart another two or three hundred at 11/3 and I cut over a hundred pounds and most of this (is) hay for my horse. I may say that I am one of the few in our district that has any money to put my hand on. The two dry years hounds many of the settlers. I could tell you a lot that have been about to leave the land. My neighbours went down with £700 over to the bad, and another £1100, and another £1800 to the bad and a great deal more. If the rain only would come we could make a lot of money. We thought it was a bad job this time again as the rains did not come until two months late, but the crops looking very well haven't had any rain for nine months before.
I may tell you that I have bought another 160 acres cleanout freehold and intend to buy some more. They tell me that I am not a fat man. I work night and day. All this last season me and the mrs. had about 4 hours in bed each night, when I loosed ferrets out at sun dawn we cut chaff for the horses and then went in the field and sewed bags until about 12 o'clock at night and then went home. Always up at 4 in the morning, we do all our own work. I look(ed) after three hundred acres last season with one team of 5 horses. Now I have put over three hundred in this time again for myself and another 100 and ten for another man at 5/0 an acre make £27.10.0 in 12 days. I have a lot of work in this time to cut men their the hay , make about £2.00 a day. You may wonder how it is that these men don't get machines of their own. I will tell you machines costs a lot of money. My harvester cost £102.00 binder £48.10.0 drill £48.0.0 cultivator £21.00 waggon £40.10.0 horses 5 and one grand foal about 2 years I bred myself. One mare £30.0.0. another £48.0.0 the mother of my foal she is worth about £30.0.0. Now a real grand one of the settlors they told me this year that my horses were the best on on the track in our town. Another £31.00 another £11.00 or got him from a friend one of the best in the district got another this harvests for £30.00 worth £50.00. This is where the money (is) for. We want more men with capital to cross to this country. I may tell you now as we have to cart the wheat 25 miles each way to the nearest siding two day trip go in one day come out the next sleep on the track some times as far as 60 horses in a camp and we all make a good fire and sit and have a good crack until about 11 o'clock at night then make our beds on the waggon then up again at 4 in the morning. George used to go in one trip and Lizzie the next. You would not know them now. We are going to get the line up for this coming harvest. They have got started. It is coming right through to my stock, the siding at the top. It makes my land worth about £3.00 an acre. It is getting bed time. No more; at lightsout(?) Tom and Lizzie send their kind regards.
With kind regards from Mr. & Mrs. Frank Lodge and family.
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Notes from wikipedia:
Cowcowing is a small town located just off the Koorda-Wyalkatchem road 215km from Perth in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The town originated as a railway siding and was later gazetted as a townsite in 1919. The name of the town is Aboriginal in origin and was first recorded by explorers in 1854. The name of the nearby lake recorded as Gow gow eeh lake, has now been renamed Cowcowing Lake, the meaning of the name remains unknown.
Korrelocking is a small town situated between Wyalkatchem and Trayning in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. At the 2006 census, Korrelocking had a population of 76.
During the construction of the Merredin to Dowerin railway line the government decided to establish a station in the area. The Yuragin progress association petitioned for a townsite to declared at the station. The town was gazetted in 1911 shortly before the opening of the railway line. The name of the town is an Aboriginal word for a nearby well that had been recorded when the area had been surveyed in 1892. The meaning of the name is not known.
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