credible to any person acquainted merely with the management of bees, and the results of that management in England. A settler at Illawarra in New South Wales, who very recently directed his attention to this branch of rural economy, had not less than 25 cwt. of honey to dispose of last season to a brewery in his neighbourhood at threepence a-pound. The climate and vegetation of Moreton Bay are, in my opinion, still better adapted to the bee than those of Illawarra, and the circumstance suggests a source of comfort and wealth to industrious emigrants of the humbler classes of society that ought neither to be neglected nor despised.

CHAPTER VI.

ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTIONS SUITED TO THE SOIL AND CLIMATE OF COOKSLAND.

"Be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff. And they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs."-NUMBERS Xiii. 20-23.

Ir has long been the general impression in New South Wales, that Moreton Bay is too far to the northward for the production of wheat or any other European grain; and I confess, that until I had visited the district myself, and ascertained the fact to be otherwise, I was under that impression also. Two circumstances had concurred in producing and maintaining this impression: on the one hand, the wheat of Hunter's River, situated about a hundred miles to the northward, was known to be considerably lighter than the wheat grown to the southward of Sydney, as well as of inferior quality and more liable to be attacked and destroyed by the weevil; and it was natural to suppose that so much farther to the northward as the district of Moreton Bay, the soil and climate would be still less suited to the production of that grain. On the other hand, the Government had attempted the cultivation of wheat at a place called Eagle Farm, a few miles down the river from Brisbane Town, during the con

tinuance of the Penal Settlement at Moreton Bay, and as it had proved a complete failure, the experiment was not repeated elsewhere for a long time thereafter. Besides, when the Settlement was at length thrown open to free immigration towards the close of the year 1841, the whole of the available labour of the district being employed exclusively in tending the rapidly increasing flocks and herds of the Squatters, there was no leisure in any quarter for the cultivation of grain, and the whole of the flour required in the district was imported from Sydney. The uncertainty of this supply, however, especially before a regular steam communication was established with Sydney, and the great cost of the article, over and above its price in the capital, induced various parties in the Settlement to attempt to grow wheat for themselves, and the gratifying result has been the complete establishment of the fact, that the Moreton Bay country is admirably adapted for the growth of wheat, as well as of various other descriptions of European grain; the failure at Eagle Farm having been owing entirely to the ineligibility of the situation.

The slightest reference to the history of the ancient world might indeed have led any person to anticipate such a result. Egypt, and the Roman Province of Africa were for ages the granary of Rome, and we learn from Holy Scripture that wheat, and barley, and flax were the principal agricultural products of Egypt from the highest antiquity. Now the limits of the land of Egypt-" from Migdol," at the mouths of the Nile, to "the Tower of Syene," under the tropic of Cancercorrespond exactly in the Northern Hemisphere with those of Cooksland, extending, as it does, from the 30th parallel of South latitude to the Tropic of Capricorn, in the Southern. Making allowances, therefore, for the difference between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres-and on the common supposition that the Southern is the coldest, that difference will be all in favour of the suitableness of the soil and climate of Moreton Bay for the production of European grain—

there is reason to believe, a priori, that the range of production in the future Colony of Cooksland will be as extensive as in Egypt and Northern Africa, if not actually identical with that of these highly favoured regions.

In regard to the adaptation of the soil and climate for the growth of wheat, Mr. Commissary Kent informed me, that he had actually threshed-out thirty-four bushels an acre from a stack of wheat grown on the Government Stock Station at Limestone, although a considerable portion of the grain had been lost through mismanagement, and that that grain had weighed from sixty-two to sixty-three lbs. per bushel. Mr. John Ross, the proprietor of a Squatting Station about twenty-three miles from Ipswich, on the road to the Gap, told me also that he had had a quantity of wheat grown on his station, of which the average produce was thirty bushels an acre; and I learned from an intelligent Squatter on the Darling Downs, that the produce in that district is at least equally great.

Mr. Ross, who is married and has a promising family, had been ten years in the colony. He had come from the north of Scotland as a hired servant or shepherd to one of the sons of Sir George M'Kenzie, Baronet, of Coll. He had had £300 in cash when the period of his engagement expired, and had entered into some speculation in stock, during the sheep-and-cattle-mania in the Colony a few years ago, but had been unsuccessful. He had commenced afresh, however, and has now 4000 sheep, besides cattle and horses, and an excellent Squatting Station on one of the best routes in the district, and quite close to navigation.

At Captain Griffin's station on the North Pine River, in latitude 27°, I found that the wheat crop, of which, however, I neglected to ascertain the return per acre, had been reaped by the first of November, corresponding to the first of May in England; the stubble-ground having been partly planted with maize at the period of my visit, and partly under the plough for more. Mr. Griffin, jun., was also preparing to plant English potatoes on a portion of the stubble-land, to be ready by the

beginning of winter. In the garden I observed bananas, pine-apples, and orange-trees growing luxuriantly along with the common English potato, the sweet potato, cabbages, Cape gooseberries, strawberries, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, and French beans.

Barley has also been cultivated in the Moreton Bay country with complete success; and Captain Wickham, R.N., the Police Magistrate of Brisbane, told me that, to his own knowledge, some superior Highland whiskey had been made from it-I suspect without paying the duty.

In short, it has been sufficiently ascertained that the soil and climate of Moreton Bay are admirably adapted for the production of every species of European grain, as well as of those peculiar to warmer climates; for as vegetation goes on without interruption all the year round, the farmer has only to select for the growth of any description of grain the particular season that will ensure the exact temperature required to bring it to maturity; the barley harvest, as being the hardiest grain, coming immediately after the Colonial winter, the wheat harvest at the commencement of summer, and the maize harvest so late as to give that inter-tropical grain the full benefit of the heat of summer.

Of

The maize crop is indeed a never-failing crop at Moreton Bay, the return on alluvial land, in good condition, being at the rate of eighty bushels an acre. the small variety of maize called Cinquantino,* or Cobbett's corn, three successive crops have been grown on the same ground in a year. This grain is extensively used as an article of food in the Southern States of North America, and indeed all over the Union. The Americans have various modes of preparing it, both in the form of cakes and of puddings. It is a most valuable grain for all descriptions of stock, and there might very soon be a large yearly exportation of it to England from the territory of Cooksland, were there only a numerous free immigrant agricultural population settled in that territory. It would form an excellent and cheap article of food for the humbler classes at home, either by itself,

* It is so called from the Italian word signifying fifty, because it is supposed to come to maturity in fifty days.