252 Notes on the Brazils and New Holland. 



who, through the lapse of centuries, have acquired the practice 

 necessary. I may take a credit to myself, that I was the first who 

 urged the necessity of such tuition in a strong manner. 



" Tobacco, with a most tender leaf, I found wild near Lake 

 Macquarrie, and it is cultivated in great quantities at the Hunter 

 River; but the colonists want Spanish, French, and American 

 emigrants to collect the crops, and prepare the leaves. The 

 culture of the vine has made great progress lately, especially 

 since Mr. James Busby imported a superior collection of cuttings 

 from Europe; but the colonists have no Spaniards or Rhenish 

 people to undertake their cultivation, and prepare the wine. 

 The olive, cotton, and white mulberry (as food for silkworms) 

 grow well near Sydney; but this sort of field culture, like the 

 previous one, will never prosper, unless the colonists be in the 

 same way schooled by men of practical knowledge." {Illustra- 

 tions of 'the prese?it State and future Prospects qfNexv South Wales, 

 p. 14. Sydney, 1835.) 



There are two obstacles which, under the present circum- 

 stances of the colony, will ever mar the above most important 

 improvements ; and the first of these is the complete abrogation 

 (since 1830) of granting land by government. Vine and 

 olive planters, and tobacco and silk growers, must now be. men 

 of capital, and able to buy land at the very outset ; but rich and 

 enterprising men, generally speaking, do not emigrate. The 

 second obstacle is of a more recent date. After I had suggested 

 the idea of employing natives of the vine and olive countries to 

 teach the culture of these plants, Dr. Lang went to the Continent, 

 and engaged several hundred French and German vine-growers, 

 who readily accepted his offers, because, at that time, the passage 

 money, which was allowed by the colonial government to emi- 

 grants of the working classes, was to be given without differ- 

 ence of counti'y; but these vine-growers had not even arrived in 

 Sydney, when a despatch from the Colonial Office abrogated any 

 grant of passage money to foreigners. This enactment, conjointly 

 with the regulation compelling the purchase of land, will delay 

 for a lonjj time the culture of all the most valuable vegetable 

 productions. What I would recommend is, that it should be 

 stipulated, that, amongst the emigrants to whom passage money 

 is allowed, a certain proportion (say the fifth or tenth part only) 

 should be selected amongst foreigners. As the colony at the 

 Cape of Good Hope is already exporting wine to England to a 

 large extent, no one can say whether, under judicious regulations, 

 New Holland might not do the same ; and also export other 

 commodities for which Great Britain is yet entirely dependent 

 upon other countries. 



London, April 10. 1839. 



