BY J. BANCROFT, M.D., FKESIDKNT. 



179 



emigrants from the difficulty found in producing wheat, and 

 Mr. Trollope, in his work on tliis colony, published in 1873, 

 attaches great inipoi-tance to this defect in the climate. 



I have recently gone over the work with a view of extracting 

 what he has said on the subject. At page 29, referring to 

 Queensland, he writes : — " In the way of fruit it produces 

 grapes, oranges, and pine-apples, but not apples, gooseberries, 

 or currants. Wheat has been })roduced but not so as to pay the 

 grower of it. Oats are grown, but are cut green or half ripe and 

 made into hay." At page 33 — ," Setting aside for the present 

 the allurements of gold, I think that wheat-growing counti-ies 

 offer the great 'st inducement to the class of men who generally 

 emigrate from our own islands. In Queensland the bounties 

 offered to emigrants ai'e bestowed chiefly with the view of 

 creating a class of small farmers, men who shall select small 

 poi'tions of the croAvn lands, by means of land orders or by 

 gradual pui'chase, and who shall become freeholders and thus 

 permanently^ wedded to the colony. The world wants wheat, 

 but the Queensland farmers cannot produced it. Indian corn, 

 or maize, is grown on these small fai-ms, and oaten hay, and 

 something is done in the manufacture of butter. But the 

 markets for these things are bad. The farmer with his Indian 

 corn is generally forced to take other goods for his produce, — 

 tea, or clothes, or perhaps rum. Wheat he could no doubt 

 sell for money. Such being the case the prospect to the small 

 farmers is not good, and they who manage things in the 

 colony not unnaturally find a difficulty m establishing per- 

 manent agriculturists on their soil." At page 39. — " It 

 should be understood that the encoui-agement of the free 

 selecter — of the genuine free selecter (sic) who intends to culti- 

 vate and reside upon the land — is and should be the first aim 

 of colonial government. A race of men who will people 

 the earth at the rate, say, of a soul to ten acres, must be 

 of more importance to a young community than an aristocracy 

 which hardly employs one man permanently ft)r every ten 

 thousand acres. Population is the thing required, and above 

 all, an agricultural population. But agriculturalists, especially 

 on a small scale, do not love a land that does not produce 

 wheat. Hence the difficulty ; — but on this account our warmer 

 sympathies should be given to those who make the attenij)t, 

 and every possible effort should be made to induce such men to 

 settle uj)on the land." Again at page 103 — But these men, 

 the aristocracy of the country, were impatient of such treat- 

 ment ; and too proud to endure such neighbours ; and therefore 

 they have bought the land themselves. They agree that, as 



