Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/34

 of six years, producing two crops a year;—maize, followed by either wheat, potatoes, sugar loaf cabbages, or swede turnips. Our crops of cabbages and turnips, which we cultivated for the pigs, were nearly twice as abundant as good crops in England. Our potatoes were large, and the crops always abundant; but the quality was very indifferent, as they possessed a strong earthy flavour, the ground evidently being too rich for them. Wheat yielded good crops in dry seasons; but when the spring was moist, it grew as luxuriantly as reeds, and consequently there was not much grain. Maize, whether the seasons were wet or dry, was a never failing crop. The greatest quantity harvested on the plain we cultivated, was at the rate of seventy-five bushels per acre; other settlers, however, in the neighbouring Port Macquarie district, have informed me that they have had one hundred bushels per acre. The cause of our crops not being greater, was probably owing to our planting pumpkins between the rows. The ground was twice flooded during the time that I lived at this station, but the floods did not occasion much detriment to the standing corn, our only loss being a few cabbages and turnips.

Directly the tide loses its influence in the river it ceases to be navigable any farther, even for small boats; and it now assumes the appearance of a rapid stream flowing over beds of shingles, a quarter of a