Clement Hodgkinson

“ In this respect, they present a great contrast to the supineness and want of union among the colonists of New South Wales. Should the South Australian settlers find that they can continue to grow wheat at a rate low enough to allow of its being profitably exported, I have no doubt that they will become a thriving community; especially if they adopt means of irrigating their lands during seasons of drought, which, I am afraid, will visit South Australia periodically, in common with the other level parts of New Holland. ”

“ Indeed all the colonists are now aware of the advantage of investing capital in vineyards; but as it requires a considerable sum of money to form vineyards of any extent, and as the adverse circumstances of the colony have deprived the colonists of all their available funds, it will only be from the renewed emigration of persons with capital from England, going out expressly to become wine-growers, that New South Wales will ever become the great wine country for which she has been designed by nature. ”

“ However, even in the most distant regions of New South Wales, beyond the limits of location, there is much more intercourse among the squatters, or licensed occupiers of land, than would be imagined. In those districts near the coast, many of the squatters are retired officers, who are often married men, with large families; of course, wherever female society extends its influence, the bush-life of Australia is deprived of much of its roughness, and the agrèmens of civilized life are in some measure preserved by small social reunions, music, boating parties, races, &c. ”

“ The colonists of that province are certainly much more industrious than those of New South Wales. They have been indefatigable in examining into all the natural advantages of their adopted country, and have been laudably anxious in their endeavours to make these advantages generally known in England, that those numerous classes, now receiving scarcely any return from their small properties in the mother country, might be induced to better their condition by emigrating to that thoroughly British colony. ”

“ I think that the Australian colonies will always be able to compete advantageously with other countries in the production of wool and tallow. The extensive plains of South America, are certainly eminently qualified for the rearing of sheep, and at present swarm with herds of cattle; but, notwithstanding its comparative vicinity to England, the unsettled state of that continent, and the difference of duty [3] turn the scale infinitely in favour of Australia. As to Southern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, the sheep in that colony are very inferior to New South Wales ”

“ In districts subject to drought the crops would often be injured in consequence, and if land carriage had to be resorted to in order to convey farm produce to Sydney, it would evidently be impossible to grow wheat at such a low price. In fact, as I have said before, to produce grain profitably at such low prices, the land must be of the best quality, situated in a district unvisited by drought, and in the vicinity of navigable waters, and purchased for one fourth of the money originally expended on it. ”

“ Although the yearly increase of homed cattle is not so great as that of sheep, yet the great exemption of the former from disease or casualties, and the very small expense attending their management, rendered cattle, during the prosperous times of the colony, the favourite stock, especially for newly arrived emigrants. The only disorder, which appears occasionally among cattle in New South Wales, is black leg, or black quarter ”

“ Even when prosperity shall revisit the colony, I do not think that rural lands will ever attain a higher value than that determined by the actual profit, or income that can be derived from them yearly, all fancied value from proximity to village reserves, &c. will never more be entertained by persons of sense; and if agriculture does not yield any profit to those who embark in that pursuit, alluvial land would then indeed be totally valueless. When Dr. Lang wrote his valuable Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales in 1834, it appears that wheat was quoted at 3s. ”

“ The great advantage of the growth of wool to a new colony like New South Wales is, that what really amounts to a large resource for her, forms but a small proportion of the whole quantity required in the market which she supplies. Thus the price of the article is not regulated by the cost of production, but by the state of the home market. Australia enjoys an advantage which is somewhat analogous to the rent of the most fertile land in old countries. ”

“ Whatever may be the predominant cause of the present deplorable state of affairs in Sydney, I do not think that confidence and a healthy tone will reappear among the commercial community of that city, until all those traders and merchants, (who are not able to meet their engagements and are now striving to hang back from the fatal goal of insolvency, to which they must perforce arrive, sooner or later,) pass away, and are succeeded by a new class of merchants, possessing the full confidence of respectable houses in England ”

“ Old settlers and newly arrived emigrants, merchants, and mechanics, all hastened to outbid each other at the Government sales by auction, and purchased at exorbitant rates, sections and allotments of land which they had probably never seen, and which were often hundreds of miles from Sydney, and in situations such, that if they had only listened to the dictates of common sense, they must have perceived that they were often paying for their land ten times more than it was worth. ”

“ In a new country like Australia, it will only be from actual experience, that we can eventually acquire a knowledge of the varieties of wines best suited to its climate and soils, for yielding the best possible wines that can be produced in that colony.
The oldest vines have always been considered in France to yield the best wine; and in some of the best vineyards, at Vongeot near Dijon, Migraine near Auxerre, and Epemay, the vines are at least five hundred years old. ”

“ Many persons also threw away their money in the purchase of land they had never seen, and were totally unacquainted with, with no other reason for so doing than the notion that all land in the Australian colonies must go on increasing in value, whatever might be the price originally paid for it. ”

“ Now that the land-mania has subsided, and a contrary reaction has taken place, the most fertile tracts of ground, whether improved, or in a state of nature, are quite unsaleable at any price, and many beautiful, well-cultivated farms have been sold by execution at frightful sacrifices. ”

“ This sheep-boiling speculation will also produce great good in stamping a minimum value on sheep, a value depending on the comparatively little fluctuating markets of the mother country; and should a new demand for sheep arise from the emigration of persons of capital to New South Wales, sheep may increase in price from that cause, but under no circumstances can they again fall below their minimum price, determined by the intrinsic worth of their skins, wool, and tallow. No one therefore can do wrong in purchasing sheep at their present prices ”

“ Labour is more cheap and abundant than it ever was before; supplies of all kinds for the use of a farm, including agricultural implements, are twenty per cent, lower than they formerly were, and working bullocks and horses are much cheaper, the latter especially being not one-fourth of their former price. Besides, very extensive tracts of country have been discovered since 1834, much more suitable for agriculture than the more central parts of the colony. ”

“ Now, during all the long continued commercial depression, and monetary confusion, under which the colony still suffers, and the consequent low prices obtained for all kinds of produce, the cash prices of wheat have never been so low as this. Nevertheless, that author particularly alludes to the advantages attending agricultural pursuits in New South Wales, when those who engage in them are small capitalists, especially that industrious class of working farmers with large families, whose position at home in England is so miserably dependent and precarious. ”

“ Manure is occasionally used in France for vineyards, as the quantity of wine is invariably increased thereby, but at the same time its quality is much deteriorated. In the more sandy soils of New South Wales, a dressing of stable manure and wood-ashes, applied at the time that the ground is trenched, would materially assist the growth of the cuttings, without being in any way injurious to them ”

“ At present, however, only enough wheat is grown in this fine district to supply its thinly scattered population, for the land carriage to Sydney would be so long, that it would be impossible to grow it for that distant market. ”

“ The flock-masters, being thus unable to sell their surplus sheep, became panic-struck; for most of them were-more or less embarrassed by engagements contracted with the supposed certainty of being able to meet them by a sale of some of their sheep; moreover, as the wool scarcely paid the expenses of its production, leaving the increase for profit only, the notion became prevalent that sheep were all but valueless. The price of sheep therefore fell to two or three shillings per head ”

“ Agriculture is the next branch of rural industry in New South Wales, for our consideration. This is more uncertain than any other colonial occupation, as the market is so continually glutted with imported grain, that it is often impossible to effect sales unless at a ruinous loss. ”

“ Thus, in the country at the foot of the Australian Alps, which are seven thousand feet high, and the Port Macquarie district, in which the mountains are often upwards of six thousand feet in elevation, no injury or serious inconvenience has ever been sustained from long droughts. It has been lately averred that South Australia is superior, as an agricultural country, to any other of the Australian colonies. ”

“ Experience has proved in Australia, that the only districts in which one may be assured of exemption from drought, are those where the chains of mountains attain a very great elevation, and throw off numerous lofty ranges extending to the sea coast ”

“ Among the finest wheat districts in the territory of New South Wales are the fertile plains, of vast extent, which are situated among the ramifications of the Australian Alps, or Warragong mountains, which attain an altitude of 7000 feet above the level of the sea, and are capped by eternal snow. ”

“ The greatest drawback to the life of an Australian settler is the solitude, and the absence of the conveniencies of civilization. With some persons, however, this would be more than counterbalanced by the feeling of unrestrained independence they would enjoy ”

“ In a country like New South Wales, where wood is so abundant that every tree felled helps to increase the value of the land, wood -ashes would form a cheap and excellent application to vines, which would increase the quantity of the wine without imparting any disagreeable flavour to it. In some of the best continental vineyards, no manure is however used in any form ”

“ Ebsworth, joined with the present moderate rate of shepherds' wages, has again rendered sheep a most profitable and safe investment for capital; but as many persons, especially in England, consider it the greatest folly to kill sheep for their mere skins and fat, when such a large sum is derived yearly from their wool, I will first make a few observations in defence of the practice of "sheep-boiling." ”

“ Maize has never been imported by Great Britain in any quantity worth noticing, so that I am quite unable to say what price it would realize. As an occasional cheap and nutritive article of food for the working classes in England, maize meal would be found very much superior to oatmeal and barley-meal. ”

“ In the inland districts the squatters are, however, generally unmarried, most of them being young men of education and of good connections at home. The life they lead is of the most wild and reckless character, their only amusements in the country being kangaroo hunting, with the occasional excitement of a hurdle race, or steeple chase. They generally travel down once a year to Sydney, to sell their wool, and purchase supplies for the ensuing year. ”

“ Among those who ridicule it, is the editor of the late Sydney Gazette, who, in the Colonial Gazette, in a long article on the state of New South Wales, deprecates the plan of slaughtering sheep for tallow in the following terms. "As drowning men are said to catch at straws, so have many flock-masters caught at the trap of killing and boiling down their sheep for tallow, by which process they hope to realise at least 5s. per head for their surplus stock of sheep. ”

“ From the millions of sheep in Australia, it will be evident, that when the yearly increase is so great, the butchers might be abundantly supplied, and many hundred tons of tallow exported, without the flocks suffering any diminution in number. ”

“ Vine-cuttings are generally planted with a dibble, but the holes are sometimes made with a spade in very loose ground, and in France in clayey soils a trench is sometimes opened down each row to place the cuttings in, as the compression of the surrounding particles made by & dibble in a tenacious soil, would have an injurious effect on the growth of the cuttings. ”