ABSTRACT
As EARLY AS 1850, Western Australia had attempted to foster a yeomanry in the South-West while allowing pastoral occupation up to the fringe of the central desert; and the 1850 regulations had arranged for agricultural or tillage leases all over the colony, as well as for squatting leases. Blocks of 120 to 320 acres were to be leased for eight years and could then be either renewed or purchased.1 This part of the regulations commenced an experiment which was for decades a prominent feature of land legislation in the colony.
