Book I. AGRICULTURE IN AUSTRALIA. 165 



produces intoxication and sleep. After the use of it for some time, it produces inflam- 

 mation, leprous ulcers, and consumption. It is cultivated in all the South Sea islands, 

 except the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. (Spix's Travels.) 



1030. The Manillas, or PhUlipine Islands, are a numerous group, generally fruitful in 

 rice, cotton, the sugar cane, and cocoa. The bread-fruit also begins to be cultivated" here. 



1031. The Celebesian Islands are little known. They are said to abound in poisonous 

 plants ; and the inhabitants cultivate great quantities of rice. 



1032. The agriculture of the Loochoo Isles, as far as it is known, resembles that of China. 

 The climate and soil of the principal island seem to be among the most favourable for 

 man on the face of the globe. The sea breezes, which, from its situation in the midst of 

 an immense ocean, blow continually over it, preserve it from the extremes of heat and 

 cold ; while its configuration, rising in the centre into considerable eminences, supplies 

 it with rivers and streamlets of excellent water. The verdant lawns and romantic 

 scenery of Tinian and Juan Fernandez are displayed here in higher perfection ; cultiva- 

 tion being added to tlie beauties of nature. The fruits and vegetable productions are 

 excellent, and those of distant regions are found flourishing together: The orange and 

 the lime, the banyan of India and the Norwegian fir, all thrive in Loochoo. The chief 

 object of cultivation is rice, the fields of which are kept extremely neat, and the furrows 

 regularly arranged by a plough of a simple construction : irrigation is practised. They 

 have also a very nourishing variety of sweet potato. The animal creation is generally 

 of diminutive size, their bullocks seldom weighing more than 350 lbs., though plump 

 and well conditioned, and the beef excellent ; their goats and hogs are also diminutive, 

 but the poultry Uu-ge and excellent. The bull is chiefly used in agriculture. These 

 islands are not infested by any wild animals. The inhabitants seem to be gifted with a 

 natural politeness, good-breeding, and kindness, analogous to their climate and the pro- 

 ductions of their country. {Hall in Edin. Gaz., vol. iv.) 



1033. The Moluccas, or Spice Islands, are small, but fertile in agricultural products. 

 In some the bread-fruit is cultivated, also the sago pahn, with cloves and nutmegs. 

 Ilie nutmeg-tree (Myiistica moschata) grows to the size of a pear tree, with laurel-like 

 leaves ; it bears fruit from the age of ten to one hundred years. The fruit is about the 

 size of an apricot, and when ripe nearly of a similar colour. It opens and discovers the 

 mace of a deep red, growing over, and in part covering, the thin shell of the nutmeg, 

 which is black. The tree yields three crops annually ; the first in April, which is the 

 best ; the second, in August ; and the third, in December ; yet the fruit requires nine 

 months to ripen it. When it is gathered, the outer coriaceous covering is first stripped 

 off, and then the inner carefully separated and dried in the sun. The nutmegs in the 

 shell are exposed to heat and smoke for three months, then broken, and the kernels 

 thrown into a strong mixture of lime and water, which is supposed to be necessary for 

 their preservation, after which they are cleaned and packed up j and with the same in- 

 tention the mace is sprinkled with salt water. 



Sect. II. Of the present State of Agriculture in the Australian Isles. 



1034. The Islands of Australia form a most extensive part of the territorial surface 

 of our globe, and the more interesting to Britons as they are likely one day to be over- 

 spread by their descendants and language. The important colonies of New Holland 

 and Van Diemen's Land are increasing in a ratio which, if it continue, will at no very 

 distant period spread civilisation over the whole of the islands composing this large di- 

 vision of the earth. The immense population, territorial riches and beauty, commerce, 

 naval power, intellect and refinement, which may then exist in these scarcely known 

 regions are too vast and various for the grasp of the imagination. Their rapid progress 

 to this state, however, is unquestionable ; being founded on those grand requisites, tem- 

 perate climate, culturable soil, ample water intercommunication ; and, to take advan- 

 tage of all these, an advanced state of civilisation in the settlers. 



1035. The ]>rincipal Australian Isles are New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, New 

 Guinea, New Britain, and New Zealand. 



1036. New Hollaiid and Van Diemens Land are not rich in mines, sugar canes, 

 cochineal, or cottons ; but they are blessed with a climate which, though diflTerent in 

 different places, is yet, on the whole, favourable to the health, comfort, and industry of 

 Europeans ; they exhibit an almost endless extent of surface, various as to aspect and 

 capability, but, taken together, suited in an extraordinary degree to the numerous 

 purposes of rural economy, the plough and spade, the dairy and sheep-walk. The 

 emigrant has not to wage hopeless and ruinous war with interminable forests and 

 impregnable jungle, as he finds extensive plains prepared by the hand of nature, ready 

 for the ploughshare, and capable of repaying manifold in the first season. He is not 

 poisoned by pestiferous swamps, nor frightened from his purpose by beasts of prey and 

 loathsome reptiles ; he is not chilled by hyperborean cold, nor scorched and enfeebled by 



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