Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/198

 180 my journal luxuriously. A boat having come up the river to-day from Perth, I got ready twenty bushels of wheat, and sent it to the Government store, as the first instalment in payment for advances.

My debt amounts to not much. About £60 for beef, wheat oats, peas, oatmeal, tea and sugar. The advances were made at a time when these articles were scarcely to be had through any channel. We have had twelve months' credit, and it has been of the greatest assistance to us; indeed I know not what many of us could have done without some such aid. By the way, you wrote that "oatmeal would not keep,"—the Government meal is marked of the year 1829. I have a little of it yet, and it is as good as on the day it was exported. I believe there is some mode of packing it air-tight, and that this is the secret of its keeping so well.

I have observed, on a former occasion, that our wheat costs the grower 10s. per bushel; it has since been calculated at 15s. per bushel. Our neighbour, Mr. B., charges 4s. a bushel for grinding it; other expenses, of lost time, &c., are 1s. per bushel more. If we send it to Perth, where it is ground for 2s. per bushel, the distance makes the expense equal to Mr. B's. charge; or, if we grind it by hand, the time occupied, the first price of the mill, and its continued repairs, prevent any reduction in the expense of its manufacture. It occupied a very great part of the time of my two men, and they were constantly breaking the mill, which had cost me £5; so that you see our ground wheat (whole meal) costs about 28s. per cwt. I cannot help thinking of the beautiful fine American flour, some of which I bought at 13s. per cwt. As to oaten meal, none has ever been ground here, nor is it likely; so that even for medical purposes it would be in demand with us, setting aside the Irish and Scotch in its favour. I am sure it would sell at from 25s. to 28s. per cwt.

I had sent James to borrow a seed riddle, and was on the look out for some pigs that were trying to circumvent the garden,