Irish town—"The same kind of houses and potato-patches, the same paddocks with the same kind of cows, the same kind of stone-walls." The town of Belfast, it only remains to add, has been represented for some years in the Victorian parliament by its present member, Mr. J. J. Madden, a stalwart young Irish-Australian Catholic. The county triumphantly returned Sir Charles Gavan Duffy soon after his arrival in the colony, and was subsequently represented for a lengthy period by a typical true-hearted Celt in the person of the late Hon. Michael O'Grady. Mr. James Toohey, its present member, has been continuously returned at all the recent elections.
Another estate known as Farnham adjoined Mr. Atkinson's in the early days, and like his, it was subsequently subdivided into small farms and largely occupied by industrious Irish immigrants. It extends to the eastward from Belfast towards the town of Warrnambool, and from its rich volcanic soil are produced the very best potatoes in Australia. As many as 40,000 tons of potatoes have been exported from Warrnambool in one year, and the quantity annually sent away from Belfast has, at times, been even greater than this. "As a potato-grower the Irishman has no equal, and as a pig-raiser he is hard to beat," was the conclusion arrived at by a candid critic after travelling through this district. "Leasing land for potato-growing," writes a gentleman intimately acquainted with the locality "is the great event of the year with the small proprietors in the district, and the prices paid per acre are a source of the greatest astonishment to the residents in less favoured districts of Australia. The leaseholders get possession of the land on the 1st July, and give it over on the 1st May ensuing, and for this they pay the high rent of from
