change came (like
most of those with large allotments and surplus capital), it greatly
increased the value of my own property, though at the cost of a terrible
blow on the general interests of the colony. I was lucky, too, in the
additional venture of a cattle-station, and in the breed of horses and
herds, which, in the five years devoted to that branch establishment,
trebled the sum invested therein, exclusive of the advantageous sale of
the station. (6) I was lucky, also, as I have stated, in the purchase
and resale of lands, at Uncle Jack's recommendation. And, lastly, I left
in time, and escaped a very disastrous crisis in colonial affairs, which
I take the liberty of attributing entirely to the mischievous crotchets
of theorists at home who want to set all clocks by Greenwich time,
forgetting that it is morning in one part of the world at the time they
are tolling the curfew in the other.

(1) Cowley: Ode to Light.

(2) Cowley on Town and Country. (Discourse on Agriculture.)

(3) How true are the following remarks:--

Action is the first great requisite of a colonist (that is, a pastoral
or agricultural settler). With a young man, the tone of his mind is more
important than his previous pursuits. I have known men of an active,
energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of animal spirits,
who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed better than men bred
as farmers who were always hankering after bread and beer, and market
ordinaries of Old England... To be dreaming when you should be looking
after your cattle is a terrible drawback... There are certain persons
who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed in Europe, sail for
Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be made there by a sort of
legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a very short space of time,
and return to England to abuse the place, the people, and everything
connected with colonization.--Sydney. Australian Handbook (admirable for
its wisdom and compactness).

(4) Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from
a manuscript letter to the author from Mr. George Blakeston Wilkinson,
author of "South Australia"--

"I will instance the case of one person who had been a farmer in
England, and emigrated with about L2,000 about seven years since. On his
arrival he found that the prices of sheep had fallen from about 30s.
to 5s. or 6s. per head, and he bought some well-bred flocks at these
prices. He was fort