63 
The Omeo Plains, though lying at a great elevation, 
will hereafter he profitably occupied. They consist of 
elevated land, with a climate not unlike that of the south¬ 
western counties of England, hut perhaps more severe 
during two or three of the winter months. The soil is a 
deep, dark-colored, somewhat tenacious clay, producing a 
luxuriant but rather rank vegetation. The climate is too 
wet aud too cold for sheep of the merino breed, and fluke, 
a disease very destructive among these, is said to prevail 
throughout the district. The pastures of the plains, in 
their unimproved state, are unquestionably better adapted 
to the grazing of cattle than sheep ; but if subdivided and 
brought into cultivation, the long-woolled breeds of Great 
Britain would undoubtedly thrive admirably upon them. 
The climate and the soil give reason to hope that a 
proper system of rotation cropping would be found to be 
practicable which in many other districts of the colony, 
owing to the uncertainty of the weather, could not be 
carried out profitably. Root-crops, which are indis¬ 
pensable to proper rotation farming, and the successful 
breeding of long-woolled sheep, could be grown there 
from year to year without fear of failure through drought. 
It is a district that, probably, would be found better 
adapted to systems of husbandry resembling those of 
Britain than any other parts of Victoria. 
The extensive swamps in Gippsland could be drained 
and sown with suitable grasses. Thus treated, they would 
make good feeding grounds in summer, and become 
available for the support of stock when other parts were 
dried up. They are not fit for growing grain, but from 
no fault of the soil ; the crops might be lost in conse¬ 
quence of their liability to rust and other fungoid 
