July i, 1889.I THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
45 
IN TASMANIA : SOUTHWARD HO ! 
FRUITS AND OTHER INDUSTRIES— THE RABBIT PLAGUE 
SCARCITY OF WATER AND THE AVERAGE ANNUAL RAIN- 
FALL - THE EUCALYPTUS AND OTHER VALUABLE TIM- 
BERS — HOBART AND TASMANIAN SCENERY — ORNAMENTAL 
TREES AND FLOWERS — FISHES. 
Hobart, May 7th, 1889. 
The almost perpptual sunshine here (even when 
frost oocurs at night the sun is often blazing hot by 
day) is so favourable to the production of fruit, that 
this enterprise is " going ahead" in Tasmania at the 
rate which tea is doing in Ceylon. On grafted trees 
two years from the nursery, say three to four years old 
in all, fruit is obtained from apple, pear, cherry, plum, 
apricot and peach trees, while gooseberries, rasp- 
berries and strawberries thrive equally well. Such 
apples and such loads of them (even yet) on mature 
trees I never saw, and apart from the opening 
trade with Europe, all the Australian Colonies con- 
sume vast quantities of fruit. But all is not gold, 
There are the drawbacks of scarce and dear labour, 
rendering it impossible for farmers to keep their 
gardens properly weeded; the rabbits, when they can 
obtain access to young orchards (and they some- 
times burrow under net fences) ring and kill the 
apple trees, as the brown bugs used to treat our 
coffee trees. Then there is, in the case of apples, 
the codlin moth, for the repression of which all 
orchardists have to pay a tax of 2s per acre. There 
is a penalty on the selling of affected fruit, and so 
they and the very small apples (common this year 
in consequence of the dry season) are boiled and 
used as food for pigs. Small potatoes are used to 
feed fowls as well. The result of competition and 
large production of fruit has been that, according 
to my good friend Mr. Forsyth, the price of apples 
has gone down since 1856, from £1 per bushel to 
3s. Still the pursuit seems to pay, this and 
farming when families are able to do most of their 
own work. Herein is the value of sons and daugh- 
ters, to immigrants and settlers. Mr. Dale mentions 
Lord Dufferin's statement to this effect to an emi- 
grant who sailed with him and who responded with 
"Eight you are, sir; that's just what I've been 
telling Maggie 1" But in new countries men must 
be ready to turn their hands to anything; and a 
very intelligent farmer and orchard owner, a 
Tasmanian born, who owns extensive possessions 
on the hill slopes which rise from the Derwent near 
Bridgewater, came in from gathering the "windfalls" 
in his orchard in order to go with us to his 
limestone quarry and well-built kiln, showing us 
also the jetty into the Derwent whence his own 
sailing boat starts frequently with loads of excellent 
hydraulic lime for Hobart. The formation generally 
along the Derwent is largely limestone, with drift 
gravel near the river. The yellowish colour of the 
limestone, I understood, and when I saw beauti- 
ful white marble-like blocks in the quarry fall, 
I never doubted that these, apparently pure car- 
bonate of lime were chosen for burning. But no: 
the " blue stone " was selected in preference, — not 
the volcanic formation known by that name inVictoria, 
but bluish-grey limestone which burns white, and 
with which a good deal of marl is associated. 
" Free-stone," white and yeliowish-brown, is abun- 
dant; and much of ih. bttiuty of Hobart, when the 
sun is reflected from the bu ldings (as it so fre- 
quently is), i3 due to the large employment of lius 
material in the better class of houses and the hand- 
some public edifices. Mr. Wilson, the farmer referred 
to bom in Tasmania in 1820, complained, like all 
oi/her owners of agricultural and pasture lands, of 
the ravages of the rabbits, which deprive the sheep 
and cattle of their food, eating the grasses and 
other plants, to uproot which they soratch the soil. 
But he strongly objected to the remedy of phos- 
phorized oats, the use of which, it seems, the 
Government at one time rendered compulsory. He 
told me that the insectivorous shrike, known as 
the " magpie," from its plumage, swallowed the 
poisoned oats and died in such numbers that grubs 
and grasshoppers increased to an injurious extent. 
As to families doing their own work in these 
colonies, it must be remembered that the climate 
enables the mother and daughters in well-to-do 
families to perform most of the household work 
and yet preserve the refinement and the accomplish- 
ments of ladies. — I was told that turnips for 
cattle feeding do not answer well here in con- 
sequence of the prevalence of "fly," but there is 
compensation in the splendid mangolds which are 
grown. Noticing no clover and hay fields, but green 
corn crops in the fields and straw stacked as hay, 
I learned on inquiry that clover and rye grass 
do well in normally moist seasons, but that two 
dry years had rendered their cultivation impossible 
and had compelled resort to green crops and the 
drying of them as substitutes for hay. In walking 
over farms and orchards, and in going up creeks, 
gullies and slopes on the hill ranges which rise 
from the banks of the Derwent, I was struck 
with the dryness of the surface and the pau- 
city of waterholes, the water in such holes 
being brown with mud. I believe I have previously 
mentioned in the Observer, what I was told in 
Victoria, that horses bred on the " runs " get so 
accustomed to muddy water, that earth has to be 
stirred into the pure water, when it exists, put 
into troughs for horses at inns on the roadsides. 
Water for irrigation purposes would have been 
" worth its weight in gold " to the farmers and 
agriculturists along the sides of the Derwent in the 
past two dry years. The average annual rainfall 
of Hobart is only a little over 23 inches and in 
1887 only 18 inches fell. Deep digging and the 
bringing of subterranean springs to the surface are 
the remedies, but capital and co-operation and 
machinery are necessary for this purpose. They 
will all be ultimately applied. I have been amazed 
at the enormous size of masses of timber lying on 
the wharves here, and although Hobart has been 
in existence since 1803 (six years subsequently to 
the establishment of the British in Colombo) there 
are still grand trees on the sides of the ranges 
which everywhere rise from the undulating basin and 
"foot-hills" amidst which the beautiful capital is 
situated. The prevalent eucalyptus is " pepper- 
mint," E. amygdalina, and the stems ragged with 
bark which the tree is casting off, or, more generally, 
gleaming white as polished marble, are very striking. 
This tree makes excellent firewood, the twigs, even 
when green, being good for lighting fires. Owners 
of timbered land who want it cleared for pastoral 
or agricuitural purposes, allow the timber (in the 
neighbourhood of Bridgewater, 12 miles from 
Hobart, to be cut and carted a .vay for Is per cart- 
load. Those who have no such object in view, 
charge 6s a load for firewood. But good coal has 
been found in many places, and supplies of this 
mineral (•' black diamonds ") are likely to contri- 
bute largely to the wealth of this island, so highly 
favoured by nature in beau y aud wealth. The 
climate, although it can be intensely cold at intervals 
(the heat of summer being much less than that 
experienced on the neighbouring Continent), is also, 
undoubtedly, salubrious to' an exceptional degree. 
That is, if the ordinary laws of sanitation are 
observed. Had you accompanied us in our trip 
of five miles, up the lower ranges of Mount 
Wellington, to "the Bower," whence Hobart derives 
its water supply, you would have been struck as 
we were with the general resemblance of the hill and 
