204 POBEST CULTTIBE. 



Judicious forest culture, appropriate to each zone, 

 will vastly ameliorate the clime, and provide for the 

 dense location of our race ; for transplanting of almost 

 every commodity, both of the vegetable and animal 

 empire, we possess, from the Alps to the Steppes, from 

 the cool mountain forests to the tropic jungles, condi- 

 tions and ample space. 



River-waters, now flowing unutilized to the ocean, 

 when cast over the back plains, and artesian borings 

 also, will effect marvellous changes. Steam power 

 and the increased ingenuity of machinery applied to 

 cultivation will render the virgin soil extensively 

 productive with far less toil than in older countries, 

 while the teachings of science will guard us against 

 the rapacious systems of culture and the waste of fer- 

 tilizers which well-nigh involved ruin to many aland. 

 Of ferocious land animals Australia is free. We have 

 neither to encounter extensive hordes of savages to 

 dispute the possession of the soil, nor the still more 

 dangerous opposition of half-civilized barbarians, such 

 as for ages yet may obstruct the progress of civiliza- 

 tion in the great interior of Africa. 



Our continent, it may be foretold prophetically, will 

 ere long be regarded of so high a territorial value that 

 no tract, however much disregarded now, will remain 

 unoccupied. Our continent, surrounded moreover by 

 the natural boundaries of three oceans, free and un- 

 connected, must advance, by extraneous influences 

 undisturbed, by ancient usages unretarded, to that 

 greatness to which British sovereignty will ever give 

 a firm stability, 



