Page:The new British province of South Australia.djvu/23

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INTRODUCTION.

little. The subject has been treated at great length in two volumes recently published, under the title of 'England and America.' To that work we must refer the reader who is desirous to ascertain the objects of an old state in planting or extending colonies, the errors hitherto committed by colonizing governments, and the best means of rendering colonization highly advantageous to a country situated like England.

These are questions which interest all classes at home. But in the discussion of these questions, the writer arrives at a conclusion which deeply concerns those whom we now address; viz., persons who may contemplate settling in the new colony of South Australia. The conclusion is, that, whatever the objects of an old state in promoting colonization, the attainment of those objects depends upon attention to details in the plantation of colonies.

This point may properly be noticed more at length.

Sir Joseph Banks, wishing to ornament a bare piece of ground in front of his house near Hounslow, transplanted into it some full-grown trees. Those trees were torn from the beds in which they had grown to maturity. In order to save trouble in moving them, all their smaller roots and branches were cut off: the trunks, thus mutilated, were stuck into the ground; and there, wanting the nourishment which they had before received through innumerable leaves and fibres, they soon died and rotted. A way,