Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/143

 2nd. Agriculturists; depending chiefly, though not exclusively, on the cultivation of land.

3rd. Inhabitants of towns,—viz. government officers, professional men, merchants, shopkeepers, and mechanics.

In former times, and even till within the last few years, the pursuits of all these three classes of free colonists were generally combined; the merchant, or keeper of a store in Sydney, having a farm at no great distance in the interior, on which he cultivated grain for the colonial market, and depastured sheep and cattle, by means of convict labour, under the superintendence of ticket of leave, or free overseers. But this is now no longer the case, except in a very few instances. The three classes of colonists above enumerated are now becoming quite distinct*from each other; the extensive proprietor of sheep and cattle seldom growing more grain than is absolutely necessary for the supply of his own establishment, and frequently depending even for that supply on purchase from others; while the cultivation of grain and of other farm produce for the colonial market is progressively falling into the hands of settlers of an inferior class; the inhabitants of the towns subsisting in the mean time on their government salaries, their professional or mercantile pursuits, their shops or their handicrafts.