without a road through it, and therefore capable of being enclosed within a ring fence. The average of price was, I fancy, below 25s. per acre. After fencing this truly valuable freehold, Mr. Ritchie discovered that he could let it for such a yearly rental as would enable him to live handsomely without the responsibility of stock. Mr. Edols, of Geelong, was, I think, the first tenant on a five years' lease, and ever since that day Aringa has been a highly productive estate, covered with a matted sward of clover and rye-grass, adapted either for sheep or cattle, equally profitable to farm or to let.
Yambuk, formerly the property of Lieutenant Andrew Baxter, a retired military officer, did not come off quite so well. But I fancy the present proprietor, Mr. Suter, who has lived there since 1854, or thereabouts, finds that he has a freehold sufficient for all ordinary wants.
"Tarrone," lying to the eastward, was not distant more than ten or twelve miles from Port Fairy. It was occupied in those early days by another army man, Lieutenant Chamberlain. Both of the ex-militaires made exceptionally good squatters, refuting the general experience which does not assign a high rank as successful colonists to soldiers. With enormous reed-beds and marshes, and a certain proportion of stony rises and well-grassed open forest, Tarrone was a model cattle run, carrying generally between two and three thousand head of cattle. It was a splendid tract of fattening country, and some of the grandest drafts of bullocks that ever left the West bore the Tarrone brand, "KB." It had formerly belonged to Messrs. Kilgour and Besnard,
