66 CHAPTER VI. An excursion by night—Trees of Mount Lofty—Hill scenery— Multitudes of cockatoos—Sports of the Bush—Cattle station— Mount Barker district—The Angas. A favourable opportunity having offered itself for an excursion across the hill range into the interior, I joined a party of three gentlemen proceeding thither in quest of a sheep and cattle run, which it was their inten tion to occupy, on the squatting system, the only plan on which the Australian stock or cattle farmer can now begin with a rational hope of success. Wool-growing and grazing are pursuits incompatible with a concentration of the community ; nor will the profits derived from these pursuits, high as they unquestionably are, warrant the colonist in purchasing land merely for the purpose of feeding sheep and cattle. A discontinuance of the privi lege granted throughout the Australian colonies, to de pasture flocks and herds in districts not open to purchase, would completely put a stop to the extension of pastoral enterprise, and to the progressively increasing production of wool, through which the colonists are enabled to pur chase lands in valuable agricultural districts, or in the neighbourhood of promising townships, at a high price.