Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/21

 timber, with the exception of a few large trees. Secondly—Plains entirely free from timber, or else thinly sprinkled over with sheoaks or stunted honeysuckle-trees; sometimes of a light reddish clay soil, mixed with sand; in others of a brown loam, but producing every where excellent food for sheep. Thirdly—Open forest, varying in fertility, but every where producing excellent food for sheep or cattle. Fourthly—Stringy bark ranges, which are in general too closely timbered to form good sheep runs, but which afford a good change for cattle in the summer. The soil is in general poor and stony on these ranges; but it is, nevertheless, here that we find the greatest variety of beautiful flowers. This division does not of course pretend to accuracy. The characteristics of the three first classes, particularly the first and third, are so frequently blended into each other, that there are many tracts of country that could with equal propriety be placed in one or the other of them—still it may be of use as a rough kind of classification.

A great part of the country from Geelong to the river Grange, on the way to Portland Bay, going the southern road by the lakes Colac, Poorambeet, and Caramgemite, and more to the southward still, towards Port Fairy, a tract of probably one hundred and fifty miles long, and varying from ten to thirty miles in breadth, consists of the first description. This is admirably adapted for cattle or tillage, but not so well calculated for sheep, which on this rich soil are apt to suffer from footrot, unless very well looked after. The second division comprises the plains, which stretch from Melbourne for about forty miles to the west, where they meet the