Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/204

, 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. 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.

I will now make a few observations on vineyards. All persons of intelligence in New South Wales, who have acquired some knowledge of the resources of that colony, entertain the same opinion of its peculiar adaptation to become a great wine country; whilst no other branch of rural industry can be at all compared for the profits eventually attending it. It is only within the last ten years that vineyards of any extent have been planted in New South Wales; and those only by a few of the more wealthy colonists, as English emigrants have hitherto invested their capital, almost exclusively, in flocks and herds; being deterred from planting vineyards by their ignorance of the culture of the vine, the great care and attention required in the fabrication of