one. Great care is now being taken to ascertain the best varieties for export, and to grow them. There are apple orchards in Victoria of 200 acres in extent. Packing, which is the chief difficulty to the British fruit-grower, seems to give trouble also in Australia. We are not so neat-handed as the Americans. 27,000 acres are down in vines, and about 23,000 acres are bearing, the produce being over 2,000,000 gallons per annum. A great deal is being done in this trade, also, by co-operation, through wineries, or wine factories. But the future all over Australia lies, probably, for perfection, with light wines, and, for those who prefer rough methods of production, with grape brandy. Growers should remember the history of Marsala, and of the Cape wines. A permanent wine trade in England is only to be secured from the top. The famous, or notorious, settlement of Mildura, on the Murray, carried out at first on too expensive a scale, has, so far as production is concerned, shown wonderful results. But, placed too far from a market, and requiring a large original outlay from the settlers, it has proved a disappointment to many. The Government has come to the assistance of the settlers, and advanced £40,000 for the purpose of putting the irrigation works in order. A railway to the settlement has also been authorised by Parliament, and will be constructed within a year or two. One of the greatest obstacles to progress will then be overcome, for, depending on river communication as they do now, the orchards are shut out from their markets for four months in the year, just when their produce is ready; for the Murray is not navigable all the year round.
The colony is fifty-six million acres in extent. Twenty-three million acres have been alienated to private owners; and of the 30,000,000 acres available for settlement.
