less in the hands of the latest purchaser. Insane as such a process would be, it presents an exact parallel to the mode in which we at present deal with our valuable possessions, namely, the fertile lands of this colony. As the cotton grower has to sink his money and labour to produce his crop, so have we been sinking our money and the value of our labour to obtain something convertible into great additional value; but that conversion we refused to make, preferring to speculate upon a continually increasing advance in the raw material, until the price has become too high for its profitable conversion to a productive state, and we find ourselves left with an imaginary rent-roll, based on imaginary farms, and intrinsically valueless domains.
We intended to conclude this subject by enumerating some well-known facts as to the genial character of the colony for agricultural and horticultural purposes—a fact, the general truth of which is not disturbed by the exceptional occurrence of hot winds, or by the misrepresentations of interested parties, that agriculture is incumbered with greater difficulties and less profits here than in the mother country. We find this, however, so well done to our hand in the Prospectus of the "Australian Society for the Development of Local Resources," lately projected in New South Wales, that we avail ourselves of some of the positions they lay down, strengthened as these are by the acknowledged superiority of our own soil and climate to many parts of the adjoining
