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