5 square miles. Men of leading positions with seats in the
Legislature, described it for the most part, as incapable of tillage,
and only fit for grazing sheep and cattle, and for "nomadic tribes." A
population not numbering more than 277,579 souls imported largely its
breadstuffs from South America and other foreign countries. It is now
well known that in all divisions of the colony--north, south, or
west--there are as rich wheat lands as in any part of the world; but
then the mass of the population were densely ignorant of the true
character of the country, and those who knew better, were in too many
instances personally interested in keeping them ignorant. The stories
that were told of the fruitless endeavours of industrious men to obtain
patches of land for a freehold home under the Order-in-Council seem, to
the present generation, like cruel bits of romance.

APPENDIX TO EVIDENCE OF MR. J. ROBERTSON (before Select Committee.)

On entering upon the subject under enquiry by the Committee, it is my
purpose to assume that the state of agriculture in general, and of wheat
culture in particular in the colony, is exceedingly unsatisfactory, and,
if not absolutely declining instead of progressing, is at least so with
reference to population. The causes of hindrance or failure of
agriculture generally, and of the raising of wheat, in particular, I
take to be the first and greatest, that for many years the policy of the
Government of the colony, whatever may have been its object, has
unquestionably tended not only to check the formation of new agriculture
establishments, but to depress existing ones.

While the agriculturist has been absolutely excluded from leasing any
portion of the public land, and thwarted, harassed and dispirited at
every turn in his efforts to obtain the submittal of such lands to sale,
and subjected to public competition at auction before suffered even then
to purchase, the grazier has been allowed to use them under a system of
leases, affording him the greatest possible facility of possession, and
at the lowest imaginable rental, namely, at the rate of 10_s._ per annum
for 640 acres, with the right, in an overwhelming majority of cases, to
purchase choice spots therefrom, without the slightest delay or trouble
and at the lowest legal price, namely, 20_s._ per acre, and absolutely
without competition.

Some of the difficulties above alluded to, as attending the purchase of
a farm from the C