JULV 1, 2886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



39 



IN SEARCH OF A HOME IN TASMANIA. 

 {Bij " 01 J Cohiiis/;' F. R. G. 1.) 



•'Near youder copse where once the garden smiled, 



And still where many a garden-flower grows wild." 



"Is this place in Chancery ? " 1 enquired of the 



driver of the trap in which I had a few minutes 



before left Longford railway station. 



" Chancery ?" he replied, " I downt knowc what 

 you call chancery, but them places he e be all much 

 aloike now, they be different in ould toimes." 



I could have guessed as much. The dilapidated 

 gate we had just passed, had evidently in its day 

 no small pretensions to gentility, though now it 

 hangs on one hinge, pulling, in its downward 

 course, the ornamental pillar off the plum. 

 The approach is no longer approachable, the 

 thistle and sweet-briar having taken possession 

 of what had once been the neatly gravelled walk ; 

 along which, in brighter days, guests may have 

 been welcomed and children merrily played. The 

 garden, alas ! is now a jungle of the most motley 

 description. The once carefully introduced and 

 nurtured European plants, degenerated into weeds 

 of ungainly shape, the strongest crushing down 

 the weak, though all flowering with a brilliancy 

 strangely out of keeping with the sombre surroundings. 

 The great hedge-rows have long ceased to get their 

 annual trimming, and now open at the bottom, branch 

 out at the top into huge gormandizers, heavily laden 

 with haws. The buildings themselves — originally a 

 comfortable compromise between an Indian bungalow 

 with godowns and a Scottish homestead — are now 

 sadly dilapidated. The "stich in time " has evidently 

 been omitted, and there seems a settled air of 

 decay and despair around the gloomy place. 



I challenge any living man to say if this is 

 not a faithful picture of the homesteads in this, 

 the oldest, and one of the best agricultural dis- 

 tricts of Tasmania. Nor is the cause far to seek. 



Take one case in point. Mr. M came here 



from India 40 years ago, with a little money, and 

 a nice young family. The Government rule in 

 those days was, show your money, and we make 

 you a free grant of land, an acre to every pound 

 of capital you pofisesn. A system which led to very 

 obvious abuses, and old chums still chuckle as they 

 relate how they hoodwinked the officials, by lend- 

 ing to each other for the moment ; so that, in 

 the same way that one hat did duty with a dozen 

 planters at the levee in Kandy, £1,000 would 

 secure to many the coveted thousand acres. 

 And the paternal Government in those good old 

 times, not only supplied the land free, but the 

 labour too, or at a merely nominal price, and as 

 the demands of Victoria for all kinds of produce 

 were then all but unlimited, prices rose to a fabulous 

 figure. Under such circumstances, he would indeed 

 be an indifferent farmer who did not rapidly make 

 a fortune. 



Mr. M was a good farmer, and, more- 

 over, a man of honour, great energy and good 

 taste ; his carefully husbanded capital might be 

 looked upon as accumulations of seJf-deniah. One 

 great object in his life being to make a fixed and 

 comfortable home for his family, and gain them 

 a better start in life than he himself had. His 

 farm of GOO acres became a model in the district, 

 and the admirably laid out fields still testify to 

 his taste and skill as a practical agriculturist. 

 But, as is too often the case, the sons of this 

 thoughtful and frugal man, grew up with tastes 

 the very antipodes of their father's : never having 

 been accustomed to work, they had no belief in 

 the dignity of labour ; never having earned money, 

 they had no compunction in spending, Honfe-rucing 

 was more i» their line, and the days of their early 



manhood were chiefly spent in galloping round the 

 country, settling up for the past or arranging for the 

 coming races. In course of time, the old colonist died 

 — for, even in this best of climates, the best of 

 men do die on reaching the end of their allotted 

 space. The youths now had full swing and in- 

 dulged their tastes without restraint. The usual 

 result rapidly followed : the money-lender, the 

 foreclosed mortgage, " the worst inn's worst room," 

 — one such " gentleman" was pointed out to me the 

 other day in the capacity of sub-stableman at a 

 village Drunkerage. 



But I beg my readers' pardon, all this I 

 own has got nothing to do with bona fide farm- 

 ing and the decline. No, there are other causes 

 for the collapse, the chief of which, is the labour 

 difficulty. Prison labour is no longer available, and 

 no supply as yet to take its place. I note that 

 farmers are advertising for hands at (is 6d per day 

 to gather potatoes. Meanwhile Victoria much more 

 than supplies all her own requirements, in all 

 kinds of farm produce, and prices are down to a 

 limit that leaves no margin to the cultivator. Such 

 is the present condition of farming here, and I 

 am convinced that things have not yet reached 

 their worst ; for ask the ^xlce of land and fully 

 oO per cent more is asked than for similar land in 

 England ! The prosperity of the past is not yet 

 sufficiently distant, nor the true cause of the pre- 

 sent depression sufficiently realized. And yet, I 

 am no pessimist, I feel assured, indeed, there must 

 be a glorious future for this beautiful island gen- 

 erally, and particularly for this rich agricultural 

 locality, but the conditions are not now i^resent, 

 and probably will not be in our brief time. 



Longford lies 113 miles north of Hobart. I 

 have said nothing of the intervening country, the 

 scene of desolation is really too painful to dwell 

 upon. District after district has been cleared of 

 its inhabitants by the remorseless sheep-owner, 

 the frugal little farmer forced into town. Villages 

 extinguished in their infancy and the people com- 

 pelled to emigrate elsewhere. But there is an agency 

 at work which may in time break down the power — 

 which fostered as it was by corrupt legislation — the 

 people were helpless to resist, and it is wonderful 

 to think of the apparently insignificant agents 

 Providence often employs to work revolutions. We 

 all know what a very minute fungus can do. In 

 this case, the llabhit is the honoured instrument 

 and has already been put in possession of the 

 abandoned fields, the result being that instead of 

 so many sheep to the acre, as estimated by the 

 grasping wool -grower, it is now a case of so many 

 acres to the sheep. This, together with the great 

 fall in wool, has recently brought sheep farmers to 

 their hunkers, whining to Government for help to 

 exterminate " the pest." The only cure, I believe, 

 is population, and the ultimate outcome will prob- 

 ably be the breaking up again of the big runs and 

 encouraging the return of the people to a con- 

 tented country life. I only wish all our "pests" 

 were as curable as the rabbit inffiction. 



Longford is the largest surviving village in 

 Tasmania, containing a population of 1,286 spread 

 thinly over a level space, sufficient for the site of 

 a mighty city. To the S. W. the " Great Western 

 Mountains " rise abruptly from the plain at a 

 distance of about lo miles, while in the distant 

 N. E. Ben Lomand raises its blue head 5,000 feet 

 above us. The Arthur's Lake river winds its way 

 sluggishly through the fiat fields in which the 

 well-conditioned cattle leisurely browse. An air of 

 extreme stillness pervades the scene as I sit listening 

 to the measured peal of the church-bell, and am 

 reminded that cix\y laat week (April 37th) the 



