smaller settlers have stood for years. And yet it has been through the action of the storekeepers that a considerable portion of the settled country has been cleared and cultivated, and without them much of the land which is now under tillage would be still wild bush.
A poor but hard-working man has, perhaps, managed to save money to the amount of one hundred pounds. He is anxious to establish himself in a home of his own and to purchase a few head of cattle, or a small flock of sheep, and also to clear and cultivate a few acres of land. If he hires a farm which has been already cleared and fenced (and many small places of this character will be offered to him if he is well known as a hard-working man), he will probably find the land nearly worn out by over-cropping, and the small run connected with the farm in poor condition and insufficient for the stock which it will nominally support.
If he is wise he will have nothing to do with an old cleared farm, but will take up a tillage lease from Government, upon the easy terms an account of which will be found in the Appendix. He must then commence his operations by building a rough bush house of perhaps a couple of rooms and an outhouse. Let him do this as cheaply as he can it will cost him both time and money, and the cost of his own provisions will have to be prepared for as well as the wages of the man or two he has hired to assist him.
Next comes the clearing of his land, say twenty acres to begin with. Clearing alone will cost three pounds per acre if he hires men to do it and reserves himself for the fencing, which he will be wise to do if he is a fair
