Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/60

 34 few have been able to raise as much as is sufficient for their own consumption.

I have seen two or three good fields of wheat, maize, barley, oats, and rye, and I have every reason to believe that crops of all sorts will thrive here with moderate care; melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, cabbages, peas, and all the ordinary garden vegetables, have been already produced.

Our vessel was the first that came during the season; and being just in time, everything sold enormously high. If this colony be supported as it ought, during the trying period of its infancy, I am convinced, from all I hear, that it will succeed. Cockburn Sound is an excellent harbour in winter; Gage's Roads in summer. From the nature of the coast, the climate, and the relative circumstances of the interior, it is unlikely that another harbour so good will be found in this quarter. All the rivers in this neighbourhood seem to be small, and to have bar harbours. A river has lately been discovered, beyond the range of hills running to the north-west. Beyond those hills, the interior, for forty or fifty miles back, has an undulating appearance, and is then succeeded by plains good for pasture. On this side, the only good pasture is on the alluvial flats, which are flooded every winter. Those who speculate on keeping large flocks speak of going next summer over the hills, which are of trifling elevation, and present no serious obstacle to carriage, or the