or six weeks he may get 30 acres in crop, after which he can work for others. Those who have no bullocks of their own, will give him 10s. or 12s. per acre to plough their land, which he can do at the rate of nearly an acre per day. When When ploughing is over, sheep-shearing commences. At this, if a good hand, he can earn £2 or £3 per week; or he may fill up any or all of his time by carting ore from the mines, which will bring in about £2 per week. While he is busying himself abroad, his wife, if an industrious woman, will be looking after the cows, pigs, and poultry, cultivating vegetables, making bread, butter, and candles, brewing ale, and attending to other matters for the family. The family will all be employed helping the mother; or if a boy or girl can for a time be dispensed with, some neighbour will be glad to give ample remuneration for their services. At harvest he and all the boys commence reaping, and after great exertion and laudable perseverance, generally succeed in getting the crop in without further aid. This is a trying period, especially to the young settler, who while laboriously harvesting, is usually exposed to the burning rays of an Australian summer sun. The common plan is to reap mornings and evenings, and rest for three or four hours at mid-day. To hire assistance at this period is, to the small farmer, ruinous, as harvest-men are always scarce, and their terms very high; indeed, some large farmers, who bear a reputation for paying less liberally or punctually than others, have, not unfrequently, had a large field of wheat standing for a month after it was ripe, for want of hands to cut it. The farmer who acts as above will, at the end of the year, have a pretty considerable balance in his favour. Presuming that he has earned by labouring for others during six months out of the twelve, £48; and that the produce of the 30 acres is 600 bushels, being an average of 20 bushels per acre, his account will stand somewhat as follows: 600 bushels of wheat at 4s. 6d. per bushel 135 0 0 Six months' earnings EXPENSES. The cows, pigs, and poultry have brought in Wear and tear of dray, plough, 10 2 6 10 0 0 the year, say 48 0 0 183 0 0 Thus, in one year, the farmer has realized upwards of £140, besides supplying himself and his family with an abundance of food, clothing, and other necessaries. There, of course, will occasionally occur a few losses and crosses, such as cows straying, and getting impounded; fowls or pigeons being stolen by hawks; or the dray being upset, and costing a pound or two for repairs; but the sum realized is sufficient to cover all such incidentals, and leave a goodly surplus to boot. It generally takes a poor labourer about three or four years to place himself in the above position; and those only succeed who are healthy, strong, industrious, persevering, and self-denying. In his progress to independence, each settler acts differently; some place their earnings in the savings' bank, and otherwise hoard it until it amounts to a sufficiency to commence farming on a liberal scale; others begin with an acre of garden, then get a cow, next a pig, and so on. I knew a person who had been a hosier in London, that commenced on his own account in the colony by purchasing a dray, six working bullocks and tackle, and two tarpaulins, of a man on the spree, who, to obtain liquor, sold the whole of them to him for £25-not half their worth. Six weeks after this transaction, a person who had transgressed the law, and was about to fly from the colony incognito, sold him an 80 acre section, fenced in, with farm-house, implements, and 40 acres of wheat, and 6 acres of potatoes in crop for £75! Thus, for the sum of £100, he established himself as a respectable farmer. Such instances are of rare occurrence. Many of the small farmers are Germans, who as a class make excellent colonists; and if the British emigrant would follow their example, of steady, quiet, temperate habits, the prosperity of the colony would be greatly enhanced. The Germans in South Australia like not the idea of renting land, be it ever so cheap; as, above all things, they desire a settled home, which they consider they only have when the land they occupy is their own freehold. Frequently a number of individuals club together, purchase several hundred acres, and form a village or small township; in this manner about a dozen German villages have already been formed in the colony, the inhabit |