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AGRICULTURE. 155 them to regard the element of water as a thing to be stored up against the hour of need. The trickling rivulet is rapidly evaporated by the influence of an Aus tralian sun, but the formation of dams and ponds would keep up a constant supply in places which are now ren dered uninhabitable in years of drought. In some seasons, before population had begun to pour in rapidly, the harvests of New South Wales were super abundant, and the price of wheat has consequently been so low, that farmers have given it to their pigs, rather than incur the expense of sending it to market. But in general the colony has been compelled to import agricul tural produce from Van Dieman’s Land and New Zea land, and, latterly, even from Valparaiso and Calcutta. From this fact, we may either infer that agriculture in New South Wales is discouraged by the dryness of the climate and the poverty of the soil, or we may suppose, with more truth, that the other pursuits open to the colonists have been so much more lucrative, that few per sons have applied their labour and capital to agriculture. In the early history of New South Wales, the farmers of the Hawkesbury and the Hunter, which districts were the granary of the colony, became wealthy through the abundance of their convict labour; but the present scarcity of labour falls with peculiar severity upon the agriculturist, who is compelled to maintain his establish ment of servants, whatever be the fate of his crops. In the harvest season of 1840, requisitions were sent to Sydney from the agricultural districts, soliciting the loan of convict labourers, as the only means of saving an abun dant and ripening crop. Sir George Gipps complied with this request, and sent off the prisoners then disposable in