Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/364

340 of the region have been developed by the perseverance of the settlers; at present the visitor to the district around Brisbane will see prosperous farms, vineyards, orchards, and gardens, though he will still find a great deal of land that is practically unoccupied.

At a station a few miles out from the city the train halted for several minutes, and gave Frank and Fred an opportunity to glance at one of these suburban farms. The house of the owner was embowered in vineyards, and close by was a field or plantation of pineapples, which grow here in great profusion, and are of delicious quality. Frank asked the name of a vine that had crept over the roof of the house and almost concealed it from sight; he learned that it was known as the passionfruit, and was a native plant, producing a very pleasant tart fruit, which unfortunately was not then in season. There was a garden at one side of the house, and in it were all the vegetables of an English garden, including several kinds of melons, besides ginger, arrow-root, sweet-potatoes, and other tropical and semi-tropical productions. Farther back was an extensive field of sugar-cane, which was flanked on one side by a field of oats, and on the other by rows upon rows of luxuriant maize, or Indian corn.

"This is a wonderful region," said a gentleman who accompanied our friends, as the train moved on. "Probably there is no other place in the world where the products of the tropics and temperate zones grow so well together, and certainly there is none where they grow any better. Apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and other northern fruits are