24 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



drought-defying." And he grows enthusiastic over the 

 Mitchell grass and the blue-grass prairies.* 



Of the Northern Territory a resident writes that there 

 is a vast area of grass country near the magnificent rivers 

 of Arnheim's Land. There is no finer place, she adds, 

 for breeding cattle and horses. In other portions of 

 the territory there is a great variety of grasses and 

 bushes, all of them edible. f 



In only two quarters is a different note struck. So 

 long ago as 1846, before the experiment had been 

 actually made, a false prophet rashly predicted that the 

 wide Canterbury plains in the South Island of New 

 Zealand would never be capable of carrying large flocks 

 of sheep. J These glacier-shaven plains, the prophet did 

 not know, though the fact would have confirmed him 

 in his opinion, have been levelled by glaciers from the 

 Southern Alps, but they have bred many millions of 

 sheep. Canterbury " contains millions on miUions of 

 acres of the most beautifully grassed country in the 

 world, and of the best suited for all manner of sheep and 

 cattle." § 



On his way from Bahia Blanca on the coast to Buenos 

 Ayres, Darwin was greatly struck with the marked 

 change in the aspect of the country after he had crossed 

 the Salado. From a coarse herbage they had passed 

 to a carpet of fine green verdure. A like change was 

 observed between the country around Monte Video 

 and the thinly inhabited savannahs of Colonia. Darwin 

 was at first inchned to attribute the difference to some 

 change in the nature of the soil. It turned out to be 

 entirely due to the manuring and grazing of cattle. A 

 similar change is observable in North America, where 

 the coarse grass, between five and six feet high, changes 

 into pasture land after it has been grazed down by 

 cattle. In many parts of Australia precisely the same 



* Opals and Agates, p. 18G. 



t Cliamhers's Journal, 1846. 



X Butler, Erewlion, p. 3. 



§ Daly, Northern Territory, pp. 218-9, 276. 



