Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/212

 The total outlay will therefore be £7,800. The interest on this money, during the first years, would be more than amply covered by the small quantity of wine made during the fourth year. Having assumed four hundred gallons of wine to the acre as the avenge quantity that may be expected from the Australian vineyards, after the fifth year, one hundred acres of vines would yield forty thousand gallons, which, if worth two shillings the gallon, would be of the value of £4000. The expenses attending the cultivation of the vine, and the fabrication of the wine, having been taken by me at £ 16. per acre, the clear yearly income after the fifth year, would be £2400. So that if the data on which I have based this calculation were correct, a person investing £ 8000. in vineyards, would be indemnified for the interest on his capital, during the first four years, by the wine of the fourth year, and ever afterwards realize an annual profit of upwards of thirty per cent, on his capital. If I have erred in the foregoing estimate, I rather think it would be in over-rating the expense, for I see that Mr. Busby estimates the expense of preparing the ground, by trenching it three spits deep, planting the vines, and four years' cultivation of them, at £48. the acre.

The wines already made in New South Wales, are, as I have before said, of very good quality, and present a great contrast to the ordinary wines from the Cape; for those of the former colony have in no