Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/253

 No. 3. Peninsula Farm, Swan River, July 14, 1832.

In compliance with your wish, 1 here send you a short statement of my proceedings and remarks since my arrival at Swan River. If you think them worthy of notice,, or useful in any shape, they are at your service.

February 3d, 1830, arrived at Swan River, in the brig Tranby, from Hull, and found many of the emigrants in their tents, at Fremantle, generally dissatisfied, and full of complaints respecting the colony, (and some of them ready for going away). The flats up the Swan, the badness of the soil, the heat of the weather, with many other things of the same kind, appeared to be the subjects of general conversation, when worshipping at the shrine of Bacchus; and after being assailed on every hand by such miserable comforters, I found it necessary to leave them and go to look for myself, and after reaching the Peninsula, (where I now reside,) was convinced that the land was of an useful character, and might be made to suit the general purposes of agriculture, although inferior to much of the land higher up the Swan. The first three or four months was taken up by house and boat-building, getting up the goods from Fremantle to the Peninsula, &c. &c. In June we begun to clear the land and plough for wheat, barley, oats, rye, &c., all of which came up well, but the fences not being sufficiently good, the cattle broke in and destroyed a great part of the crop; that which escaped their ravages came to maturity, and was of a very good description. The last year, 1831, has convinced me that when the land can have tillage and proper management, it will grow wheat, barley, oats, rye, potatoes, and turnips, in great abundance: very good specimens of the aforesaid articles were produced the last year—the average weight of wheat from sixty-two to sixty-five pounds per bushel. As it respects the seed time, it is as long and favourable as we