THE TOWNS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



249 



Old residents say with pride, " We can drive around through forty miles of oranges," 

 and the statement is fairly accurate. From Parramatta to Ryde, Hornsby, Pennant and 

 Baulkham Hills, and towards Prospect, orange groves fringe the road in almost endless 

 succession. The trees are planted chiefly on the rich ridges or the higher eastern slopes 

 of the hills. English fruit-trees, caring little for an occasional bite of frost, do better in 

 the hollows. The inland drives to Baulkham Hills, or through Toongabbie towards 

 Prospect, are charming, and it is as pleasant to be about Parramatta in September as in 

 Kent in April. The orange is a winter fruit ; in spring the trees are laden with their 

 white and fragrant blossoms ; the green fruit forms and hangs during the summer, 

 getting its golden colour as autumn begins, and becoming fully ripe as the winter 

 deepens. But the seasons are so mild in this temperate climate that they intermix, and a 

 tree may often be seen bearing at the same time the lingering fruit of last season and 

 the blossoms and young fruit of the next. 



The country lying between Parramatta 

 and the Hawkesbury River is for the most 

 part gently undulating. It was easily tra- 

 versed in the earlier days, but being thickly 

 timbered was comparatively neglected ; the 

 attention of the colonists being naturally 

 drawn first to the rich alluvial land on the 

 banks of the River, at once available for the 

 growth of maize, wheat and hay. The prin- 

 cipal track from Parramatta to this early 

 granary of the colony ran north-west to 

 Windsor, a town occupying an area of rising 

 ground at the point where the River turns 

 northward, and which was then the head of 

 navigation. A second track, which crossed 

 the Hawkesbury, went westward to Penrith, 

 and from this place the explored route over 

 the Blue Mountains was opened. Tillage on 

 the banks of the Hawkesbury, early begun, 

 has never ceased, for the deep rich soil seems incapable of exhaustion, though several 

 times the settlers have seen their farms under water, having to run from their cottages, 

 or, when too late for flight, to be rescued in boats. Back from this alluvial belt the 

 land is of a poorer quality, though on the tops of the hills, where some fairly good 

 red soil is to be found, many patches were cleared for wheat, till the persistent appearance 

 of rust compelled the abandonment of this description of crop. 



For many years the greater part of the district was subdivided into large grazing- 

 paddocks in which the sheep and cattle that had travelled down from the back-country 

 rested and fattened for market. On the western road a good deal of land has of late 

 years been utilized for vineyards and orangeries, especially in the neighbourhood of 

 Seven Hills, and still mare recently this land has become valuable for residential purposes, 

 particularly for those who desire a larger block than is easily obtainable eastward of 



ST. MATTHEWS CHURCH, WINDSOR. 



