THE ORGANIC ENVIRONMENT 23 



scattered over it as in England. Some of the hills 

 resembled the Wiltshire downs, with the same short 

 pasturage, while others were covered with rich, long 

 herbage. All animals, they soon found, that were sent 

 over there from Tasmania, throve. At three months they 

 were equal to their mothers ; and the cows were hke 

 " fats." Grass was abundant at every point.* 



" When I arrived through the thick forest-land from 

 Portland to the edge of the Wannon country," enthusias- 

 tically writes a pioneer squatter, "I cannot express the joy 

 I felt at seeing such a splendid country before me. ... I 

 could neither think nor sleep for admiring this new 

 world. ..." There were no fewer than thirty-seven 

 different species of grass, and they were about four 

 inches high, of a lovely dark-green, f 



In Western Victoria billowy waves of oat-grass, wild 

 clover, and half-a-dozen strange fodder plants, adorned 

 the great meadows and river flats. Far-stretching 

 plains, where salt-bush, cotton-bush, and many another 

 salsiferous herb and slirub grew. It was called " sound 

 fattening country." J 



In Western Victoria the volcanic plains are rich in 

 saline herbage, intermingled with the best kinds of 

 fattening grasses. § The most north-westerly tract of 

 pastoral country in the Wimmera district of Victoria 

 "is of the finest description of sheep country, very 

 openly timbered, but scantily watered." 



Of South AustraUa we may compendiously say that 

 the grassy portion of it consists of endless undulating 

 plains, somewhat reduced in value by the hghtness of 

 the rainfall, 



Mr. Bartley writes enthusiastically of the broad 

 pastoral plains of Queensland. There " the rich succu- 

 lent herbage, showing less than a foot above ground, is 

 fed by roots six feet deep, moisture-gathering and 



* Victorian Pioneers, pp. 276, 277. 



t Ihid., p. 33. 



X BOLDREWOOD, Squutter's Dream, ch. iii. 



§ Ibid., ch. xxi. 



