r bank to the highest part of the field,
whence it is easily guided over the other parts. A little attention to
irrigation might, in my humble opinion, very soon make New South Wales
independent of imported wheat.

Another means of doing away with the importation of grain and flour, may
be found in paying more attention to the cultivation of maize. Large
quantities of it are grown at present, but they might easily be
doubled.[20] And here, irrigation would answer splendidly, the drills
forming such convenient water-courses. Large as is the quantity of maize
grown in Australia, it is not used as food for man;--why, I know not,
but such is the fact;--and I have known a convict turn up his nose when
offered corn-meal. Every one knows how extensively this article is used
in America, and how wholesome a food it is. Were the Australian farmers
firmly and unanimously to determine upon making their dependents take at
least half their weekly allowance in maize-meal, in place of wheaten
flour, the latter would soon become fond of it. There would then be an
inducement to extend its cultivation; and the large sums of money
annually remitted to Van Diemen's Land, Valparaiso, and Bengal, for
wheat, would very shortly be reduced to a small cipher.

[Footnote 20: I do not mean to say, that irrigating an acre of
wheat or maize would double the yield of grain, but that double
the number of acres now under the plough would in a few years,
after the irrigating system had been fairly tried and found to
answer, be brought under cultivation. In the neighbourhood of
Bathurst, and in many other parts of the Colony where rain is
very uncertain, there are thousands of acres of alluvial land
lying waste, which, upon my plan, would yield tens of thousands
of bushels of wheat and maize.]

To urge this most desirable object any further upon the Colonists of New
South Wales, would be to insult their good sense. I will only express a
wish that they may at once adopt measures to equalize their imports and
exports, and that the few hints here thrown out to them, may be of use.

The supply of tea and sugar to the Australian Colonies, has, on the
whole, been a profitable trade to the parties engaged in it; but it has,
of late, been overdone. The quality of the tea and sugar now sent to
Sydney, is far superior to what it used to be; and the coarser sorts of
both are going out of use; a clear proof that the population a