are now wheat exporting countries, and at present suffering under the greatest depression from the difficulty of finding markets for it. Indeed, from the immense distance of Australia from the mother country and other markets, I consider that the cultivation of the land for the production of grain, with a view to its exportation, presents very dismal prospects for the future, and I fully expect to find, in the course of a year or two, that much good land, now cultivated in Van Diemen's Land and South Australia, must revert to a state of nature. Nevertheless, Australia is much more adapted for the production of wheat, than has been generally supposed. The beautiful and fertile districts in the southern limits of New South Wales, near the Australian Alps, Van Diemen's Land, and South Australia, yield wheat not inferior to that of any country in the world.
Several shipments of wheat, which have arrived in England from these latter colonies, were much praised, and sold at a price considerably above the average price of the wheat of the United Kingdom. The following extract from the speech of Mr. Hutt, M.P., (on March 26th, 1844), contains many interesting statements respecting the wheat of the Australasian colonies, and the expenses attending its shipment to England.
"It appeared by the papers on the table, that a considerable quantity of corn, the produce of Van Diemen's Land, was imported into the neigh-
