THE TOWNS. or NEW SOUTH WALES. 



227 



varieties; but somewhat un-English would appear the piled drays of farmers' produce 

 great green melons and bulky pumpkins stacked in mounds to he sold by the ton; 

 grapes, rich, luscious, heavy as the clusters of Kschol ; oranges in their golden glory ; 

 tomatoes in boxes; chillies and pomegranates ; bundles of green sorghum and mai/e and 

 great bales of fragrant lucerne hay. It is such produce as the peasants on the Arno, 

 or even farther south on the warm and fertile slopes of Etna, would bring down to tin- 

 Italian cities for sale. All is bought and sold there with abundance of good-humoured 

 Australian banter, and when all is over the 

 farmers mount their drays or carts, -waggons 

 or buggies, and jog along homeward with 

 many a gossiping pause. It is their life 

 from week to week, from year to year a 

 fairly useful and satisfactory life, with which 

 in all our rich coastal districts we ought to 

 be far more familiar, for we have other 

 breadths of naturally fertile country, though 

 few, perhaps, so rich as Maitland in pros- 

 perous agricultural development, and certainly 

 very few that would lend themselves so fairly 

 and kindly to artistic treatment. 



The rich soil and humid climate 

 afford not only luxurious vegetation and 

 beautiful foliage, but an atmosphere which 



AT 1'ATKKSOX TOWNSHIP. 



