126 
GARDENING AND FARMING 
potatoes, peas, beans, cabbages, turnips, car- 
rots, or a little of each of them; because you 
will find vegetation much more rapid in most 
of our colonies than it ever is in England. 
Let this sort of make-shift way of living, and 
the purchase of a cow, a pig, a few geese, tur- 
keys, and common fowls, with an ox or two 
for draught, be all you attempt until settled 
down into some sort of house. There are 
fifty contrivances for keeping these few things 
secure ; and with milk, eggs, and a barrel of 
flour, you cannot starve. When you have de- 
termined where your house shall be, you may 
begin to fell some of the nearest timber to 
build it with ; and close to where you begin 
throwing the timber, set men to dig a saw- 
pit, so that the sticks of timber may be 
squared, rolled to the pit, which must be 
secured at the edges by timber at the sides 
and ends, and these sawed into proper pieces 
for building ; which pieces can be carried away 
and prepared without the least difficulty, 
while the sticks of timber in their unwieldy 
state have only to be rolled to the pit. 
These are some of the things to be done on 
taking possession ; it is the best way to make 
use of the first few days, while you are, in 
fact, making up your mind as to which is the 
best place for your house, and becoming fami- 
liar with the estate, and all its principal 
features ; for it consists in putting to work the 
ground most easily got ready, so that some- 
thing like vegetation shall go on ; obtaining 
stock enough alive and dead to keep you 
from starving ; strength enough to move 
your timber the little way it has to be moved, 
and for ploughing; and to enable you to survey 
your estate at leisure, so that you may make 
the important, the all-important selection of 
the best place for your homestead. 
But, suppose the selected spot be away from 
all kinds of river, stream, or water. The 
very first job must be the digging of a well, 
or substitute for a well, and this must be at 
the lowest, or wettest part of the land ; we 
say lowest or wettest, because the latter is 
frequently found on the side of a hill. Here 
then you must set to dig. If there be any 
chance of getting water at a moderate depth, 
make an excavation to answer as a pond. If 
there is great depth required, it must be a 
well. But in general, it is of the greatest 
service to sink a hollow in the lowest part 
of the ground, that the rain may be collected, 
even if there be no land springs. Or if 
there be no borers for water in the colony, 
it is a pity but some one in that line were 
to speculate, and go out with the proper 
apparatus ; for there are many farms, espe- 
cially in Australia, that would be trebled in 
value if a successful boring could be made 
there to bring the water to the surface. But 
we are to provide against the worst by doing 
all we can ; therefore take your choice. At 
all events, catch every drop of rain water 
when it comes, and let it be conveyed to the 
lowest part of the land, to make a pond for 
the cattle, when all you can hold for domestic 
purposes is secured. It may be, however, that 
the ground is porous, and requires some arti- 
ficial means to keep the water from soaking 
away. This, however, will be treated of in 
its place ; Ave mention the matter here be- 
cause all these things must be thought of in 
fixing the locality of the house, and dividing 
the land into pasture and arable, wood and 
plain, and also in deciding upon the part 
intended to be made into road. We cannot 
anticipate the kind of tract of land you may 
find, but you must be prepared for the worst. 
The colonies afford every climate — cold in 
Canada, heat in Australia, and all the inter- 
mediate states in New Zealand, the Cape of 
Good Hope, Van Diemen's Land, and other 
places. You must be provided, according to 
the spot you are going to, against the con- 
tingencies of the weather ; but there is no 
climate or colony in which you may not per- 
chance meet with all the evils we have men- 
tioned — want of water especially, because early 
settlers have naturally seized upon the best 
plots ; and the longer people delay going out, 
the further up the country they must go, and 
the more likely they are to find drawbacks 
of some kind among the rejected tracts that 
are within a reasonable distance of the ports. 
We cannot therefore too strongly urge the 
necessity of looking to water. If you happen 
to be there in a rainy season, and water seems 
to be abundant, be not the less careful to pro- 
vide for a scarcity, watching the places at 
which the water accumulates, and at these 
places excavating and forming ponds deep 
enough to retain every drop that comes, for 
it is of vital consequence ; there is no pri- 
vation, no evil that can fall to your lot, that will 
be felt so deeply as distress for water — the 
seeing of the poor cattle and the sheep suf- 
fering from thirst, and feeling yourself that 
you have not half as much as you could drink, 
and that what you have is bad. 
There are many other considerations neces- 
sary on taking possession, before you finally 
make up your mind as to the situation of your 
house, barn, outhouses, pig-styes, stables, and 
such like buildings, but we have mentioned 
the chief. All you have to do is to attend 
strictly to our advice, nor for an instant fancy 
any part of it as of secondary importance ; 
we have left all secondary things untouched. 
The principal objects must be the choice of a 
good site for the house ; sheltered by wood, 
not too high nor too low, convenient for water 
if there be any, adjoining the track or road, 
