tance. First, The rivers here have sufficient fall in them
to prevent any excessive accumulation of water, from violent or
continued rains; and are consequently free from those awful and
destructive inundations to which all its rivers are perpetually
subject. Here, therefore, the industrious colonist may settle on
the banks of a navigable river, and enjoy all the advantages of
sending his produce to market by water, without running the
constant hazard of having the fruits of his labour, the golden
promise of the year, swept away in an hour by a capricious and
domineering element. Secondly, The seasons are more regular and
defined, and those great droughts which have been so frequent at
Port Jackson, are altogether unknown. In the years 1813, 1814,
and 1815, when the whole face of the country there was literally
burnt up, and vegetation completely at a stand still from the
want of rain, an abundant supply of it fell here, and the
harvests, in consequence, were never more productive. Indeed,
since these settlements were first established, a period of
fifteen years, the crops have never sustained any serious
detriment from an insufficiency of rain; whereas, in the parent
colony, there have been in the thirty-one years that have elapsed
since its foundation, I may venture to say, half a dozen dearths,
occasioned by drought, and at least as many arising from
floods.

The circumstance, therefore, of Van Diemen's Land being thus
exempt from those calamitous consequences, which are so frequent
in New Holland, from a superabundance of rain in the one
instance, and a deficiency of it in the other, is a most
important point of consideration, for all such as hesitate in
their choice betwixt the two countries; and is well worthy the
most serious attention of those who are desirous of emigrating to
one or the other of them, with a view to become mere
agriculturists.

In the system of agriculture pursued in the two colonies,
there is no difference, save that the Indian corn, or maize, is
not cultivated here, because the climate is too cold to bring
this grain to maturity. Barley and oats, however, arrive at much
greater perfection, and afford the inhabitants a substitute,
although by no means an equivalent, for this highly valuable
product. The wheat, too, which is raised here, is of much
superior description to the wheat grown in any of the districts
at Port Jackson, and will always command in the Sydney market, a
difference of