XXviii GREAT PROPORTION OF BAD SOIL. 
character of which will he noticed in its proper 
place. 
The proportion of bad soil to that which is 
good in New South Wales, is certainly very 
great : I mean the proportion of inferior soil 
to such as is fit for the higher purposes of agri- 
culture. Mr. Dawson, the late superintendent 
of the Australian Agricultural Company’s pos- 
sessions, has observed, as a singular fact, that 
the best soil generally prevails on the summits 
of the hills, more especially where they are at 
all level. He accounts for so unusual a cir- 
cumstance by the fact, that elevated positions 
are less subject to the effects of fire or floods 
than their valleys or flanks, and attributes the 
general want of vegetable mould over the co- 
lony chiefly to the ravages of the former ele- 
ment, whereby the growth of underwood, so 
favourable in other countries to the formation of 
soil, is wholly prevented. Undoubtedly this is 
a principal cause for the deficiency in question. 
There is no part of the world in which fires 
create such havoc as in New South Wales, and 
indeed in Australia generally. The climate, on 
the one hand, which dries up vegetation, and 
