November 2,1891.] THE TROPICAL AQRiOULTURIST. 
337 
water-oarrying strata have been tapped, with good 
results ; and suoh is the promise of this source 
alone, that the death of stock by the thousands, 
by reason of drought, will soon be impossible. 
And, after al', if this be too sanguice, there 
remains a tract of nearly two million square miles, 
within which men and all that men feed upon 
grow and thrive, some parts of which are the 
most favoured in the world, and all of which 
may be utilized. Surely a magnificent heritage, 
fit habitation for a race with a great future. 
And that suoh is before the Australians, they 
may] well be confident. Of the four millions, in 
round numbers, who occupy Australia, the great 
majority are of our own stock ; scarcely even is 
New England, as to race, more a part of Great 
Britain, accidentally detached, than is Australia ; 
and nowhere have Englishmen laboured more 
stoutly and to better purpose. Mr. Coghlan's 
computations record rapid progress, of which the 
colonists may well be proud. In much less than 
a century of activity, Australia has accumulated 
a stock of wealth, which, he estimates, far exceeds 
that of Belgium, Holland, or Canada, each a 
comparatively old State. Such figures, however, 
can be but rough approximations— at best only 
very intelligent surmisfs. More trustworthy, and 
equally impressive, are the returns as to sheep- 
farming and other kindred industries. In the year 
1889 there were one hundred millions of sheep, 
nine-and-a-half millious of cattle, one and-a-half 
million of horses, and more than a million of 
swine. The value of the wool grown in that year, 
is put at twenty millions ; the value of the year's 
produce to the growers, at thirty-five millions ; 
and to this must be added the dairy produce, 
reckoned at over seven millions sterling. We all 
know the vastness of the flocks possessed by 
Australian millionaires ; the conditions of economy 
under which they are fed are less understood. 
There is no need of artifioial grasses ; that which 
grows wild on tlie runs is generally suffioient. 
Labour is dear ; therefore labour is reduced to a 
minimum, and, in place of the shepherd, who has 
all but disappeared, are wirefenced paddocks, 
within which the sheep roam at their will. The 
wool, too, is of the best ; the original stock was 
good, and the climate has improved the qualities 
of the fieece. 
These are magnificent results ; and yet cur 
Correspondent admits that agriculture is still almost 
in its infancy. It now takes about nine-and-a-half 
acres to produce annually a single fieece of wool ; 
but this, he explains, is owing to so much land 
being completely unstocked. If it all aarried as 
much as New South Wales, there would be six 
hundred millions more sheep than now exist. 
No wonder the Australians are hopeful, when 
their statisticians and agriculturists tell them that 
they may soon expect to have a clear addition 
to their present flocks of as many sheep as are 
now fed in Europe, five times the number in 
Asia, six times the number in Africa, and more 
than exist in North or South America. Econo- 
mists have explained that agriculture in its 
development follows certain laws : that when 
population is small and land plentiful, stock- 
raising is remunerative and necessary ; that, as 
population increases, agriculture becomes more 
"intensive," and huge flocks become things of 
the past; At no great distance from Melbourne 
and Sydney this evolution has long been completed. 
Elsewhere agriculture is still in the earliest stages. 
Even in Viotoria and New Zealand the cultivated 
area is only 3'7.! and 2 07 of the whole, while 
in Quooudlaud, South Australia, and Western 
Australia it is the iuBigoifioant proportion of •03, 
•39, and '01. If our Correspondent's hopes are 
well founded, the greater portion of what now 
lies useless, except for stock raising, may be put 
under crops ; and, when this transformation takes 
place, the wealth of Australasia will be immensely 
increased. It is a simple calculation ; if the value 
of agricultural produce was seven-tenths of that 
of the pastoral produce, when, to speak generally, 
only one-third of one acre out of every hundred 
was under cultivation, what will be the value of 
the former when the country is cultivated as 
Scotland or Ireland ? Of the future of Australian 
commerce one must speak only with diffidence. 
Economists and historians have not discovered 
the complex laws governing its growth. But the 
results so far entitle one to hope the best. Seven 
tariffs, more or less hostile to British goods, have 
been in operation ; but everywhere, even in Viotoria 
with its high protective duties, trade has expanded 
by leaps and bounds. The total external trade 
of Australasia in 1889 was valued at £76,384,000, 
of which no less than 77 per cent, was with 
Great Britain. In a single decade the colonial 
external trade increased by more than £24,000,000. 
It will surprise many Englishmen to be told that, 
as to shipping, " within the Empire Melbourne 
is exceeded in absolute tonnage only by London, 
Liverpool, Cardiff, and Newcastle,"— with the addi- 
tion, as Sir William Des Vceux has pointed out, 
of Hongkong— and that within the same limits 
" Melbourne is exceeded in population only by 
London, Calcutta, Liverpool and Glasgow, while 
only Birmingham and Madras are to be added to 
the list before Sydney is called." These things 
are outdone by no achievements of industry in 
the same space of time. In the last century, 
poems would have been written about them. In 
glowing heroics would have been described the 
silent, lonely and miserable land, becoming, as if 
by magic, rich, prosperous, people with flocks and 
herds, and vocal with the sounds of human in- 
dustry. In still earlier ages, had suoh things come 
to pass, the story would have been, after the 
manner of Herodotus, of some people driven from 
their homes, finding a strange land, pleasing by 
propitious sacrifices the gods, who poured upon 
the new-comers the best that Heaven could give. 
Such accounts, the poem as well as the legend, 
would have been true ; for it is the magio of 
courage and enterprise, the propitious sacrifice of 
unremitting toil, which has triumphed over all 
difficulties, and worked the marvels described in 
" The Commonwealth of Australia." — Times Weekltf 
Edition, Sept. 1. 
[We had the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Wardi 
the author of the able j articles referred tOi 
when he was on his way home. He had been 
associated in Australian journalism with Mr, 
Gullett, who some dozen years back was in 
Ceylon.— Ed. T. A.\ 
FERSIA AS A FIELD FOR ENTERPRISE. 
* * » » 
Persian commerce affords us a very striking 
example of what may be attained by perseverance, 
and a resolve to tenaciously hold on to a definite 
scheme of working. The British India Steam 
Navigation have persistently pushed business in 
the Persian Gulf, and have created by their efforts 
a valuable stream of commerce which before their 
advent did not flow, although the materials for it 
existed. This point was fully brought out by 
Major-General Sir K. Murdoch Smith in the ad- 
dress he read before the London Chamber of 
Comiaeroe in February, 1889, and a full report 
