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18th.—Had my potatoes dug this morning; I have about 3 cwt., which is good produce; for although I purchased 1 cwt. for seed, price thirty-five shillings, but a small portion of it was in a fit state for planting; I believe that only one tenth of the sets grew, so that from ten pounds I had 3 cwt.; where they did grow, they would bear comparison with any of our crops at home, and this is saying much for vegetation here; our usual bargain is to give them and seeds of all kinds on condition of getting half the produce. I have this day given Mr. Tanner sixteen pounds for this con-sid-e-ra-ti-on, and I intend to trade a good deal in this primitive kind of way with some of my neighbours, who have soils different in quality from mine, and we thus assist each other. For twenty pounds of potatoes I received, as I was starting on my late expedition, twenty shillings—a great price, you will say.
There has been seasonable rain this day, which has been of service to some turnips and cauliflowers, which I transplanted early in the morning on the potato ground. I have found not a mare's nest—but a hen's nest, with fourteen eggs, which I have removed with Dame Partlet herself to an appropriate incubation lodge, snugly placed among the grass-tree tops; as a set off against this profitable discovery, I have to state the loss of a full-grown chicken barbarously devoured by my sow.
In my list of births I have to enter two kids, but both of the wrong sort, and three kittens; and though last, not least in importance, six young pigs farrowed in the bush, and were discovered with much trouble. I have now eleven pigs, but it is difficult to procure food for them at present, and I am in consequence of the difficulty, obliged to give them biscuit and flour mixed with greens, viz., sow thistles and turnip tops.
26th.—The beautiful picture of the hen sitting upon her eggs has now vanished; one of the dogs devoured them all
