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English vegetable, and the following fruits:—melons, bananas, almonds, figs, grapes, peaches, strawberries, and Cape gooseberries, all of which have come to perfection. The olive, pomegranate, apricot, plum, mango, lemon, and orange; the mulberry, apple, nectarine, pear, and various other trees, have not yet had time to bear fruit, but are growing well. Fig-cuttings produce fruit the first year, and vines frequently do so the second year. Oaks, and other timber trees from England, are likewise thriving.
Mr. Drummond, the Government botanist—for several years in charge of the public garden at Perth, says, in a report on its progress:—“The vines planted in May 1831 have made shoots, in what is past of this season, sixteen feet long, and the strongest and finest wood I have ever seen; the olives brought out by Captain Mangles, R. N., have been laid, and produced 150 plants; all the other plants in the garden thrive as well as the best friends of the colony can wish.”
The same gentleman has expressed his opinion, as the result of his experience, that the climate of Swan River is peculiarly adapted for the growth of the vine, the olive, and the silk mulberry.
The forests afford abundance of timber suitable for house and ship building, cartwright’s work, and cabinet-making. The mahogany of the country is in great plenty. With this wood principally, the Success frigate was repaired in Cockburn Sound; and when she was afterwards overhauled at Portsmouth, the officers of the dock-yard found this timber answering so well, and in such perfect preservation, that, on their report, the Lords of the Admiralty instructed Sir James Stirling to send a quantity of it to England, at a price exceeding, by more than fifty per cent., that allowed for African oak: specimens of it (taken out of the Success, when she was overhauled on the above occasion) are preserved in
