It is a remarkable fact, but one that I believe I have already adverted to, that the farther north, towards the valley of the Wakefield, the more denuded of timber the country becomes, until at last not a tree of any kind can be seen.  These extensive and open downs are, nevertheless, well grassed, and covered with a profusion of orchideous plants.  Whether, however, there is any salt present in the soil, to check the growth of the trees, it is impossible to say.  Undoubtedly many of the ponds in the Wakefield, as well as other parts of the province are brackish, but the same denuded state of the country exists not any where else.  These districts are far too valuable to be overlooked, and are therefore extensively occupied by cattle and sheep.  My most worthy friend, Mr. Charles Campbell, and my companion Mr. John Browne, and his brother, both occupy the most distant stations to the north.  Mr. Campbell has one of the finest cattle runs in the province, and my comrade, I believe, is perfectly satisfied with his run.  The condition of their cattle and sheep would at all events lead to the conclusion, that neither suffer from the nature of the water they drink or the pasture on which they feed.

As regards the general appearance of the wooded portion of the province, I would remark, that excepting on the tops of the ranges where the stringy-bark grows; in the pine forests, and where there are belts of scrub on barren or sandy ground, its character is that of open forest without the slightest undergrowth save grass.  The trees are more or less numerous according to the locality, as well as more or less umbrageous, a character they generally have on river flats, but the habit of the eucalyptus is, generally speaking, straggling in its branches.  In many places the trees are so sparingly, and I had almost said judiciously distributed as to resemble the park lands attached to a gentleman’s residence in England, and it only wants the edifice to complete the comparison.

The proportion of good to bad land in the province has generally been considered as divisible into three parts; that is to say, land entirely unavailable—­land adapted for pastoral purposes only, and land of a superior quality.  On due consideration, I am afraid this is not a correct estimate, but that unavailable country greatly preponderates over the other two.  If, in truth, keeping the distant interior entirely out of view, and confining our observations to those portions of the colony into which the settlers have pushed in search for runs, we look to the great extent of unavailable country between the Murray and the Mount Gambier district, along the line of the Murray belt, and the extensive tracts at the head of the Gulfs, we shall find that South Australia, from the very nature of its formation, has an undue proportion of waste land.  Those parts, however, which I have mentioned as being unavailable, were once covered by the sea, and could hardly be expected to be other