Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/198

 164 SETTLBKS ^'^^ garden-ground, leaving 542 acres actually under cultivation. Area under Of this, 405 acres belonged to Government, 92 to settlers, cultivation, ^ o ^7 Kovember, and 45 to Servants of the Crown. Of the 288i acres wluch 1791. had not been sown, 134 were used as cattle-enclosures, in which the timber had been thinned, but the surface of the ground had not been disturbed;* the remaining 154^ acres were ready to receive the seed, and therefore might be properly described as "in cultivation.'^ There was thus actually under cultivation an area of 787 acres. The settlers, of whom thirty-seven had been put in posses- sion of lots at Parramatta, thus held on an average about 2^ acres of cultivated land each. The greater number, however, had only had their land for a few months. Of the 405 acres belonging to Government, 351^ were in maize, 44^ in wheat, 6^ in barley, 2 in potatoes, and 1 in oats. The yield i'^iIot!*™^ from this was as follows :— Maize, 4,844^ bushels ;t wheat, 638 bushels; barley, 59 bushels. J The other produce (barley, potatoes, and oats) was not recorded. Of the 4,844i bushels of maize, 2,6494 were issued as bread for the colony, 695 bushels had been reserved for seed "and other purposes,^* while not less than 1,500 bushels had been stolen from the grounds.§ Three hundred and eighty-three bushels of the wheat were sown for the next harvest, while 255 were issued in lieu of bread. The whole of the 59 bushels of barley • The object of the enclosure was to prevent the live stock straving araj and being lost in the bush. Soon after the arrival of the First Fleet, four cowB and two buUs, the only horned cattle the settlement possessed, strayed away. They were not heard of again until November, 1795, when they were discovered on the banks of the Nepean. They had by this time increased to a herd. — Vol. i, pp. 306, 3L1, 312, 393. " At the commencement of this month [July, 1791] not less than one hundred and forty acres were thinned of the timber, surrounded by a ditph, and guarded by a proper fence." — Collins, vol. i, p. 167. t Historical Beoords, vol i, part 2, p. 645. X lb., p. 64,5 (note). § Phillip explains that the convicts stole the grain because they were pressed by hunger. Several of them died from eatingmaize in its crude state when carrying the grain to the public granary. He adds: — "But in speaking of these people, it is but just to observe that I can recollect very few crimes during the last three years but what have been committed to proouie the necessaries of life." — ^Ib., p. 645»