154 On the Resources of Victoria, 



soil, and perform the harvesting. Be it remembered, on a 

 farm of 150 acres there ought to be 150 tons of straw to be 

 cut into chaff, and to be steamed from the waste steam of 

 the engine. And the following are some of the operations, 

 such a machine as above will accomplish under competent 

 management : — Cut hay into chaff, roots cut for sheep, roots 

 cut for bullocks, roots pulped, thick oil cake broken, wheat 

 and barley thrashed and dressed. 



Every hundred acres of arable land requires, according to 

 the present system, about five horses, and these consume an 

 enormous amount of the produce of the land ; and we know 

 that time is money in agriculture as in every other indus- 

 trial occupation. I would refer these matters to your serious 

 consideration, convinced as I am that a more general use of 

 steam engines in agricultural operations, with our natural 

 advantages of climate and soil, would take away the shadow 

 of an excuse from us for squandering in this colony of Vic- 

 toria the large amount of over three millions annually, in 

 importation of agricultural produce, which we can and ought 

 to raise for ourselves. 



In the matter of drugs and chemicals a good deal could be 

 done in the colony of Victoria — sarsaparilla, for instance ; 

 large quantities of this are imported into this colony from 

 America and Great Britain. Now this root is indigenous to 

 many of our mountainous districts, equal to the red sarsapa- 

 rilla of Jamaica, which is considered the best. 



Saffron can be produced most abundantly in the colony ; 

 also rhubarb, equal to Turkey ; with sassafras, quassia, and 

 such dyes as logwood, brazil wood, and sumach.. Of this 

 last dyestuff, I may as well mention that the very large 

 quantity of 80,000 tons are annually imported into England. 

 It grows in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The sumach tree, 

 or rather shrub, grows to a height of about eight or ten feet ; 

 the stems are ligneous, the bark is hairy and brown in color. 

 The shoots of the shrub are cut down every year close to 

 the roots, and after being dried are reduced to powder in a 

 mill. 



As to the numerous gums and resins of Australia, they have 

 been so carefully enumerated and described in a paper read 

 before this Institute in September, 1856, that I need only 

 refer to it on this subject. Opium and anodynes, such as 

 laudanum and morphine, could be manufactured here. The 

 opium poppy grows well, and by macerating and boiling 

 the capsules in water, and evaporating the decoction down to 



