Page:History of West Australia.djvu/118

 90 CHAPTER XI.

CONDITION OF SETTLEMENT, AGITATION, AND NATIVE TROUBLES.

1834-5.

ACH year agriculturists were slowly clearing and breaking more of their land and pastoralists were increasing their flocks. A steady progression was taking place, more evident in the appearance of selections and towns than in actual profits obtained from years of toil. A community with objects which it had learned to understand was now at work, and was supervised or governed by a settled staff of civil officers drawing regular salaries. The sturdy stuff of early settlers was showing itself; out of the languor begot by disappointed hopes and personal hardships had come vitality. They had learnt from a not too happy experience the colonists' lessons, and while emerging from the cloud of despondency and the period of heart-breaking toil which confers no immediate reward, they looked anxiously for the gifts which futurity held. Rest was not yet for them; overcoming the first obstacles only brought them to new ones, which, if not as great, demanded as big a heart to surmount; they saw that many years must elapse ere they could expect to realise some of the lustrous dreams of pre-colonisation. But flitting gleams of light appeared on the industrial horizon, which inspired them with more confidence and renewed energy.

Those individuals who so loudly predicted the early failure of the Swan River Colony, and the impossibility of its ever becoming self-supporting, seemed to be prophets of a low order of intelligence. Compared with the initial difficulties and the progress made in other colonies in similar periods, the settlers of Western Australia had done passing well. Originally they not only had enemies in their own rash hopes, and the lack of efficient management by the administrative authorities in England and the colony itself, but they had to battle against heavy odds in a lazy soil, in distance from every other settlement, and in the more recent trials with the aboriginal race. They had suffered hunger rather than kill their flocks and herds, and although they had not applied their energies with such a concentration of effect as men more experienced would have done, they had been ploddingly persistent. The weeds had withered from the colony, giving better opportunities to the bonâ-fide colonists who remained. Certain men whose enterprise and labour would have been useful, had unfortunately gone away, while a proportion of inefficient persons still resided in Western Australia; but substantially the turmoil, natural enough in incidence, had by compensating law removed excrescences.

In 1834, the directors of the Agricultural Society prepared statistics, showing the number of live stock, and the quantity of land cultivated, in the colony. The figures were:—Numbers of acres in wheat, 564; barley, 100; oats, 116; Kaffir corn and maize, 29; potatoes, 15; other crops, 94; fallow, 118; and vines, half-an-acre. The live stock was represented by 84 horses, 78 mares, 307 cows, 96 working cattle, 97 bulls and steers, 3,545 sheep, 492 goats, and 374 pigs. It was a distinct advance on the figures of the previous year; the area under cultivation would have been still larger but for the scarcity of seed. The irregular supply of wheat for flour caused many settlers to use up the grain which they had stored by for planting. The directors of the Agricultural Society pointed out that some people had sown on inferior land, or with insufficient tillage, and some had sown too late. They noted other reasons for congratulation. Nearly every kind of European fruit tree and shrub had been introduced, and all appeared to thrive. Tropical fruits, especially the date and banana, were given a trial, and the nucleus of those groves of banana trees known to Perth residents in recent years was formed. The white mulberry luxuriated, and figs and grapes were produced and described as equal to any grown in other parts of the world. Peaches and olives gave great promise, and the growth of vegetables was designated as superior, with common culture, to what could be obtained in England.

Then the horses, cattle, and sheep included excellent strains of the best breeds in Great Britain; in their numbers also were fine animals imported from other colonies. Owing to the small quantity and mixed description of wool, and bad packing, the prices obtained for that article in London were not more than 2s. 2d. per lb—a low return in those days. But by the experience already gained it was expected that the returns would be more satisfactory in the future.

Mr. Bland wrote a message of hope to the Society from York. He was one of the largest flock-owners in the colony, and regarded the land on the Avon as excellently adapted for sheep pasturage. It was healthy, and would keep on the average one sheep to three acres. The grass seemed to increase where sheep had pastured most, and he believed a larger proportion of stock might eventually be kept.