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[Page 4]
grain to be attended to. To this I reply: I allow that maize is naturally calculated, or intended for an hot clime, yet there is as favorable a season for the growth of wheat, as of it. When the crops of wheat were from the newly cleared land, which was of a good quality, no faults could be found. Since clearing of land has ceased, and the ground impoverished by a continued culture, together with the degeneracy and foul seed, the produce is very unfavorable. Was the ground ploughed and dunged, there is not a doubt, but what the crops would be promising, but the Colony is not arrived to that pitch to carry it into general use; therefore clearing of new land should increase in proportion to that which becomes worn out and exhausted, until the former method of tillage can be brought into general use, otherwise scarcities frequently will be felt. Though maize is formed by nature for hot climes, yet the crops are not altogether favorable, a circumstance that shows the futility of trusting to it alone. Of all the places in the world, there can be none, whose agriculture has had a more unfair treat than in New South Wales; in deed, this may be seen by a sample of the wheat, for I think I may venture safely to say, that on examination, one fourth of it will be found to be grass seeds and rubbish.
The great restraint laid upon spirits, has been productive of bad practices, for distilling has been secretly carried on, whereby a deal of grain must have been destroyed. But none can have more been thus wasted than in making beer; though I call it beer, yet it is more like hogwash than that beverage, yet it is swallowed with equal avidity. When grain is plentiful, it is but just to make a beverage from it; but in times of scarcity, it ought to be strictly forbidden, for it is well known there are people so improvident, as to sacrifice their dreams of subsistence for momentary enjoyment, and though the crops of wheat in 1805, were very scanty, yet it was then lavished in making that hogwash-like beer until flood happening in March 1806, at the Hawkesbury, whereby the scarcity at once becoming general, a total stop was put to it. Though I am in nowise inclined to sanction this petty way of distilling, and in making beer from wheat, yet I am of an opinion, that distilling ought to be carried on, under certain restrictions. Debarring the people from spirits has not made the Colony a bit the better. On the contrary it has made it worse, and increased the price of labor. Nor do I see the people are any more [indecipherable] to sobriety. There again, on the contrary, it produces a tendency quite the reverse; for in the issuing of spirits a general intoxication prevails. And those who are bent upon having it, will part with whatever they are possessed of to obtain it. But to debar those of it, who use it with moderation, merely from the motives of preventing drunkenness, I say is cruel, and contrary to the law of nature! Let me ask that person, who proposes such decisions, if he himself, will drink water alone; exclusive of the miserable diet that we subsist on, and the fatigue we are subject to.
I have now to point out the source from whence distresses may originate here. It is from a cause that I happily discovered. It will be recollected, that the highest flood which has happened at the Hawkesbury, since the settling of that place, was in March 1806, and which was most severely felt, * and the natives give accounts of floods [continued on page 5]
* The quantity of grain said to be destroyed has been exaggerated, for many of the sufferers being much involved in debt were said to give a larger estimate than they had lost. In live stock the loss was great; and the settlement will be some time before it gets the better of it. Pigs at the present, fetching [indecipherable] 2d per pound alive.