Land Improvement in Australia. 
163 
was a heavy initial cost, but now that this has been done, and a free 
outlet has been given to the sea, the floods, when they come, scour 
out the channel and prevent it from silting up. All the low-lying 
land is drained by open ditches with lateral feeders ; these require 
constant attention and entail a considerable annual expense. The 
walls and fences are a heavy item, but they are of much importance 
through the saving of labour in herding the sheep and cattle. There 
are about forty enclosures, all numbered on the plan, and averaging 
a little over eighty acres to each field. The walls are built of loose 
stones, very much in the style of Scotch dykes, where the stone is 
plentiful on the lava ridges ; and they form very good and per- 
manent fences, the only drawback to them being that they are rather 
a harbour for rabbits. Where stone is not available there are post 
and rail fences and wire fences, and some two miles of rabbit- 
netting. 
It is in the grubbing and clearing that the return for the money 
spent is most evident. All the rich land, about half the total ex- 
tent, was originally covered with heavy timber and dense scrub. It 
is entirely cleared now, and is either under cultivation or laid down 
to grass. It is, in fact, ready to be divided into moderate-sized 
farms which would be well adapted for dairying. The buildings are 
merely those suited for the management, consisting of a manager’s 
house, built of stone, a house for the men, a wool-shed, a large hay 
barn, a corn barn, and stables, all built of timber. 
Of course this place cannot be compared with an improved estate 
in England, similar to those that Mr. Pell gives examples of, but 
probably as much has been done to it as can be done at present, with 
any likelihood of a return for the money ; for though the land is 
very fertile, and the climate is good, there are certain drawbacks in 
the way of insect pests that make cultivation on an extended scale 
rather precarious. There is a field cricket that comes out of the 
cracks in the ground in vast numbers in the autumn, the depreda- 
tions of which are very serious in some seasons. I could not get the 
correct name of this cricket, though there are specimens in the 
Museum at Melbourne. There is also a very destructive caterpillar 
which bites through the straw of the corn below the ear, and which, 
when it gets thoroughly into a field, makes the crop almost 
worthless. These insect attacks are more easily controlled on 
small holdings than where the farming is extensive. 
The estate seems now to be at the stage of its improvement at 
which it is ready to be sub-divided into farms when a demand for 
them arises. As an outlet for the produce of such farms, there is a 
fine butter and cheese factory in the neighbourhood ; I saw there a 
mighty churn with a capacity for 7001b. of butter, and a circular 
butter worker able to work 1001b. of butter in five minutes. The 
cream separators, with the churns, and butter workers, and the other 
appliances, were driven by steam power, and the whole concern ap- 
peared to be managed in the best manner. The farmers who send 
in milk are chiefly the shareholders in the butter factory, they being 
paid according to the price the butter and cheese are sold for. If 
