Of all the natural productions of Australia the native grass is, beyond all comparison, the most valuable, and in this valuable production the territory of Cooksland is by no means deficient. Taking into consideration the fact that the district of Moreton Bay was only thrown open for free immigration, on the discontinuance of Transportation to New South Wales, in the year 1841, the extent to which the native pastures of the district have already been occupied by the flocks and herds of enterprising colonists, and the amount of wealth already realized from that one source, will appear truly surprising. The following list of the Exports from Brisbane for the year ending the 31st July 1844, the third year of the existence of Moreton Bay as a free settlement, will exhibit the capabilities of the country in this respect, and its extraordinary powers of production, in the clearest light.

EXPORTS FROM BRISBANE TO SYDNEY FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST JULY 1844.*

The following Return of the Live Stock in the districts of Moreton Bay, Darling Downs, and Clarence River -the country to the Northward of the 30th parallel of South Latitude-for the year 1845, will also exhibit the growing importance of this division of the territory as a pastoral country.

This is exclusive of the Exports from the Clarence River District.

RETURN of LIVE STOCK in the country to the Northward of the 30th parallel of South Latitude, in the Colony of New South Wales, on the 1st January 1846.

As the export of wool in New South Wales is found to increase annually in the proportion of one-third above that of the year preceding, wherever the extent of pasture-land occupied will admit of the usual increase in the quantity of stock depasturing upon it, the export for the year ending 31st July 1845, agreeably to this ratio, would be 2650 bales, or thereby, and for the year ending 31st July 1846, 3500 bales, or thereby. And this export, it must be recollected, is independent of that of the Clarence District, which is forwarded to Sydney direct. Now, each of these bales will weigh on an average 300 lbs., and at 1s. 6d. per lb., or £22, 10s. per bale, the export of wool alone from the Brisbane River, for the year ending 31st July 1846, would amount in value to £78,750. This increase, I was given to understand, would go on at the same ratio for ten years to come, without taking into account the vast extent of pastoral country recently discovered by Dr. Leichhardt and Sir Thomas Mitchell; there being grass enough in the country previously known for the increasing quantity of stock necessary to yield this increased export. And as a proof that I am not overestimating the capabilities of the District, the estimate. of persons well qualified to offer an opinion on the

subject in New South Wales was, that the exports from Moreton Bay, for the year 1846-1847, would considerably exceed £100,000. Now, I question whether there is any other part of the habitable globe where so small a population as that of Moreton Bay is at this moment raises so large an amount of exportable produce.

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The Stations on the Darling Downs are principally sheep stations: to the eastward of the Coast Range, where there is a comparatively large extent of land too low, too moist, and too rich for sheep, there are generally both sheep and cattle at the stations. On the Downs, where the pasture-land is quite clear of timber, from 2000 to 2500 sheep are usually seen in a single flock. This is a great saving of expense to the squatter; for in those parts of the country where the pasture-land is of the character designated by the term open forest," not more than about 800 sheep can be run in a flock. The Downs are traversed, at moderate distances from each other, by streams, or creeks, as they are called in the colony, rising in the lofty Coast Range and running westward to the Condamine River; and the usual extent of a sheep-run or station is twenty miles in length by six miles in breadth, or three miles on each side of one of these creeks. The extent of the station is therefore 120 square miles. On the east side of the Range towards the coast the stations are not unfrequently quite as large.

The climate of Moreton Bay appears to be remarkably well suited to the constitution of the sheep, although the average weight of the fleece is considerably under that of Port Phillip, ten degrees farther south; the average at Moreton Bay being 24 lbs. and at Port Phillip 3 lbs. It is a problem of the deepest interest to the colony, in an economical point of view, especially since the recent discoveries of Dr. Leichhardt, how far the constitution of the sheep will bear the gradual increase of temperature to the northward in Australia, without occasioning a deterioration in the quality of the wool. Dr. Leichhardt has discovered extensive tracts of country to the northward, far within the

Tropic of Capricorn, admirably adapted for sheep, provided the constitution of the animal will stand the climate, and provided the wool will not degenerate into hair, as it does in other tropical countries. For my own part, as no deterioration has as yet been observed in the wool of sheep depasturing so far north as Wide Bay, in lat. 26° S, I am disposed to believe that sheep may be depastured on land otherwise fit for that description of stock, without materially, if at all, affecting the quality of the wool, to the very northern extremity of the Australian land at Cape York, in lat. 10° 37′ S. But this presumption will, of course, require to be tested by future experiments, the result of which will be interesting in the extreme to the colony.

The adaptation of the district of Moreton Bay to sheep-farming, and the good condition of both sheep and cattle generally in that district, arise from the superior quality, the variety and the abundance of the indigenous vegetation. The greater frequency and abundance of rain in that part of the territory, in consequence of its vicinity to the Tropics, ensures not merely abundance but the greatest variety imaginable in the indigenous vegetation in every department of the vegetable kingdom. As an instance of this variety, Dr. Leichhardt found not fewer than 110 different species of trees, exclusive of parasitical plants and shrubs, in the brush or alluvial flat-land of Moreton Bay, and 27 in the open forest, the number of different species in European forests being generally not greater than ten or twelve; and along only thirty paces of a cattle-track at Limestone Plains, near Ipswich, Dr. L. and Mr. Deputy-Assistant Commissary-General Kent of Moreton Bay (to whom I am indebted for the information), found not fewer than seventeen different species of grass in seed at the same time, independently of whatever additional number might have passed their usual seed-time or not have arrived at it. In short, the superior quality of soil, in any particular instance, and its peculiar adaptation to all the purposes of man, are to be ascertained not so much from the abundance as from

the variety of the vegetation deriving nourishm ent from it.

Sheep average from 70 to 80 lbs., and cattle 13 to 14 cwt. at Moreton Bay, and whereas the usual allowance of the average run of pasture-land for the grazing of a sheep in New South Wales is 34 acres, or three sheep to every ten acres, Mr. Commissioner Kent, while in charge of the Government stock at the Bay, was able to keep 6000 sheep in good condition for eighteen months together on 5000 acres of land. This was done at a station on the Logan River, where, as also on its principal tributary, the Albert, there is a large extent of land of the first quality, as well for cultivation as for pasture; there being as much as 100,000 acres of such land in one locality on that river in a single block. And as the head waters of the Logan take their rise on the opposite sides of Mount Lindsay, which rises to the height of nearly 6000 feet above the level of the sea, and issue from the mountain in delightfully cool streams warbling over a pebbly bed, the scene is not less picturesque and beautiful than the land is well adapted either for pasture or for cultivation.

There is already a considerable export of beef cured at Moreton Bay, as well as of hides and sheep skins, as the reader will observe from the list of articles exported from the Brisbane River to Sydney, during the year ending 31st July 1844, and the quantity of all these articles is increasing rapidly every year. Tallow is also a considerable article of export from that district, there having been not fewer than 296 casks of that article exported during the above year. The practice of boiling down sheep and cattle for their tallow, (suggested by H. O'Brien, Esq., J.P., of Yass, in the year 1843, a time when the Colony was suffering extreme depression, and when both of these descriptions of stock had fallen exceedingly low,) has proved of the utmost importance to the entire Colony, in an economical point of view, by establishing a minimum price for both of these descriptions of stock; for whenever the market price of either will not equal or exceed the amount