and Australia: the last named is more prosperous, and does everything a little better. Australians have a little of the swagger and strut you detect in Chicago people, whereas New-Zealanders are as modest as people living in St. Louis, or any other less prosperous and enterprising city.
Friday, February 7.—In the wash-room of the
sleeping-car, early this morning, I met an American,
a Boston man, who has been a gentleman farmer in
Australia for twelve years. He told me he owned 52,000
acres of land, and that whereas he came here with
nothing twelve years ago, he would not take a million
and a half dollars for what he owns now. He originally
visited the country on business, thought he detected
great possibilities, and came here to live. He
didn't know corn from barley when he began, but applied
business rules to farming, and has succeeded. I
expressed surprise as to his large land-holding, whereupon
he told me that in the interior there are sheep
farms five hundred miles square, or as big as the state
of Kansas. This land is leased from the government
at a penny an acre. Artesian wells three thousand
feet deep are being bored, and these wells are greatly
improving the arid districts. There are plenty of stock
farms in Australia 150 to 200 miles square. . . .
The Boston man pays a good deal of attention to dairying,
although he is interested in all branches of farming:
fruit, vegetables, grain, stock, etc., and employs 280
men. Farm wages are lower here, judging from what
he told me, than in the United States. He has no
