more be entertained by persons of sense; and if agriculture does not yield any profit to those who embark in that pursuit, alluvial land would then indeed be totally valueless. When Dr. Lang wrote his valuable Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales in 1834, it appears that wheat was quoted at 3s. a bushel and maize proportionally low. Now, during all the long continued commercial depression, and monetary confusion, under which the colony still suffers, and the consequent low prices obtained for all kinds of produce, the cash prices of wheat have never been so low as this. Nevertheless, that author particularly alludes to the advantages attending agricultural pursuits in New South Wales, when those who engage in them are small capitalists, especially that industrious class of working farmers with large families, whose position at home in England is so miserably dependent and precarious.
If these advantages existed then, do they no longer continue to do so? Good rich land, on navigable waters, whether improved and cultivated, or yet in a state of nature, can be purchased at the present time for probably one-fourth of the price it was worth when Dr. Lang wrote. Labour is more cheap and abundant than it ever was before; supplies of all kinds for the use of a farm, including agricultural implements, are twenty per cent, lower than they formerly were, and working bullocks and horses are much cheaper, the latter especially being
