Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/182

 might be derived from sheep and cattle henceforward. Besides, my short visit to England will not allow me sufficient time to enter into more elaborate details on these subjects.

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. At present, as the majority of the inhabitants of New South Wales are engaged in tending cattle and sheep, in the cultivation of vineyards, and in manufacturing establishments, that colony does not produce enough grain for its own consumption, although it is capable of affording enough, for fifty times its present population, if the fertile regions in the extreme northern and southern parts of the colony were brought under cultivation, the former for maize and rice, and the latter for wheat. The other Australian colonies. Van Diemen's Land, and South Australia,