A note on Structure

4^th of December, 1815

‘I learnt with much pleasure, from your dispatch, No. 15,‡:⁹³ that you had reason to entertain a more favorable opinion of the General Character and Habits of the Natives of New Holland, who were resident in the Vicinity of the Colony, than that which I has been hitherto generally promulgated. Any project for extending to them the Benefits of Civilization and Instruction was sure to meet with the cordial Approbation of The Prince Regent, and as the Expence of the Establishment, which you deem adequate for making the Experiment, is not more than the Colonial funds, aided by private Subscriptions of Individuals, can defray, no Objection whatever can exist to immediately adopting the plan which you have suggested for carrying it into effect.’⁹⁴

1816-1831: Farms, floods and droughts

The drought broke in 1816 with a series of floods. Heavy rain in January further damaged wheat crops already weakened by drought.
‘The late rains have spoiled a great proportion of the present wheat crop; and upon a moderate estimate, has shortened the general production of the harvest, which was at best a very poor one, at least one-sixth.’⁹⁵
These rains resulted in a flood in February. In the same article the author noted that poor farming methods and weeds may have been more damaging to the wheat crop than drought or floods.
‘The heavy rains we have lately experienced, are by no means unusual to the season, though they set in some week's earlier than usual. The Hawkesbury River has several times shewn a fresh during their continuance, but has never risen to any alarming height. Their much further duration would be alarming, as most of the hollow grounds are filled, and all excess must naturally tend to inundate the country. The growing maize is for the most part strong enough to bear the wet, without being much injured; and will therefore prove a happy relief to the scarcity of wheat which it is more than probable we should otherwise have felt.
A settler of much experience attributes the general failure of the late wheat crops more to a neglect of the soil than to the droughts. … From a want of proper attention to the destruction of the roots of weeds some farms exhibit an almost impenetrable scrub of wild oats.’⁹⁶

31^st of May, 1816: Breaking of the drought.

‘It having rained incessantly and very heavily for these last four days including the present Day, there is reason to apprehend that we shall have a Flood, and that there will be a serious inundation of the Rivers Hawkesbury and Nepean and South Creek;

L. M.’⁹⁷

3^rd of June, 1816: Flood

In June there was further flooding.
‘At 3. P.[M]. this day I received an Express from Wm. Cox Esqr. Magistrate at Windsor, reporting to me, that, at the Hour of 12, O'Clock yesterday, the Waters began to subside, but had risen to immense Height the preceding Evening – being as high as the Flood which took place in 1806 – and which was the highest that ever took place since the original Establishment of the Colony in 1788 – having risen in some parts of the rivers Hawkesbury and Nepean to the enormous Height of Ninety-one feet!!! —
Mr. Cox's Report states that all the late sown Wheat will be lost, and great part of the Early Wheat, now in the Ground, as well as a great part of the Maize still out.
I drew of this date on the Police Fund in favor of Wm. Tyson Constable in Appin for £5 Cury. as a reward for his late Services as a Guide with Capt. Wallis after the Hostile Natives. — ‘⁹⁸

29th of June, 1816: Flood

At the end of June there was another flood on the Hawkesbury.

‘A second flood at Hawkesbury was occasioned by the succession of rains experienced the last fortnight. Last Thursday se'nnight the rise in the main river became rapidly perceptible, and in the course of the following day all land travelling was put a stop to, the water having attained nearly to as great a height as on the recent previous occasion. Great quantities of maize have been washed away, and it is feared the destruction of the whole of the wheat that had been sown is thoroughly compleated (sic).’⁹⁹

16^th of December 1816

In December there was more flooding.
‘Not having received any well authenticated information of the extent of damage sustained by the various settlements from the late rains, we venture to give the following partial representations, received from persons who can have no interest in deceiving us: - The Hawkesbury River, we are assured, did not overflow its banks generally, but a considerable influx took place from the Creeks. The low flat lands between Lapstone Hill and Howe Bridge¹⁰⁰ were covered. The farms low down the River, at and in the vicinity of Portland Head, were considerable sufferers: we are informed by Mr. Burn, a settler there, that his crop was laid under water, and that Mr. Churchill lost entirely fifty acres of forward maize. The range of farms along the South Creek and Cow Pastures also suffered considerably, as did Bunbury Curran, and all low situations generally; but the chief damage which the Hawkesbury itself has sustained has been, as our information assures us, from the long continuance of the heavy beating rains; the laying down of the uncut wheat and its growing in the sheaf, as well as that that was cut. The unprecedented fall of rain at this season of the year happens the more unfortunately as the crops were mostly ready for reaping; but not being reaped, the owners lost the benefit of lodging them securely on the higher grounds allotted by HIS EXCELLENCY the GOVERNOR for that purpose. The fields of forward maize that have been lost, there is time to replant where the seed is, this being the best time for sowing maize on stubble ground of barley or wheat; a practice which has been much condemned when avoidable; on account of its wearing out the ground too quickly for the want of the necessary supply of manure. The effects of the rains, considering their vast inclemency, we do not understand, however, to be so much to be dreaded as was generally considered during their continuance; but as this is hazarding an opinion that proceeds much less from certainty than a zealous wish for the prosperity of our growers, we beg to advance it as an opinion that a frugality in the use of grain would appear to claim the attention of the heads of families.’¹⁰¹

15^th of February, 1817

While only part of a lengthy article this extract well illustrates the problems of farming on the Hawkesbury. The floods of early 1817 spread the seeds of introduced weeds across the fields of farms, fouling the crops and turning farmland into wastelands. Combined with the effects of the last drought and the destruction of Aboriginal resistance in 1816 this was to be another factor leading to the search for new frontiers.
‘THE CROP.-We much regret the general understanding of a less productive harvest than from early appearances we had to flatter ourselves with; and therefore wish, by every aid we can obtain, to trace and detect the causes that have more especially led to a comparative failure in our late crops.
The principal cause has not only been the foulness of the sown land, which is in general so infected with the wild oat and tare, as not only to render difficult the process of reaping, but considerably to stunt the grain, and render its separation from the spontaneous growths in many instances impracticable. It happens unfortunately that after the wheat has sprung for some weeks the oat begins to rear its head; the tare frequently accompanies or soon after follows it, and both combine to give the sprouting field more the appearance of a bed of weeds than of a cultivated soil. The wild oat may possibly be indigenous, the profuse scattering of the tare throughout the Hawkesbury farms is attributed to a plantation of that seed which by way of experiment a gentleman put in practice 15 or 16 years ago near Windsor. The drake, which was once obnoxious to the Hawkesbury farmer, has of late years considerably declined, but finds a dangerous successor in the wild mustard seed, and in many places in the wild cotton bush, all or either of which, wherever they make their appearance, tend to the injury of the cultivated crop.’¹⁰²

15^th March, 1817: Flood

The following extract from the Gazette well illustrated the ongoing impact of floods and more importantly, for this work, mentioned Branch Jack whom most readers of the Gazette assumed had been mortally wounded in 1805.
‘The accounts of the Hawkesbury inundation are fraught with the most distressing picture of calamity. Besides a great number of wheat stacks being carried away, comprehending indeed almost the whole that were left on low grounds to the mercy of the chances, the maize, of which there was the promise of an abundant crop, that would have been ripe and fit for gathering in three weeks or a month, has been every where upon the river totally spoiled, and rotted on the stalk. The going off of the waters was observed to be almost as rapid as the rise. We have before mentioned its extreme height to have been observable on Wednesday the 26^th ult. By the following morning, as we are credibly informed, it had gone down full 19 feet at the Nepean, though at Windsor the perceptible recession was not quite 4 feet, which will of course, be accounted for by the numerous head lands which the windings of the lower parts of the river present in opposition to its course. We are told of a father and son of the name of Duff saving their lives, the one in a washing tub, the other in a pig trough, to which the dreary approach of night, and the expectation of perishing if they remained where they were, compelled them to trust their safety, and fortunately the bark proved both sea-worthy. At midnight on Tuesday the roads liable to inundation were all impassable, the rising grounds were insulated, and could only be gained at the hazard of life; many families were at that dreadful juncture involved in perils not to be imagined. Without food, fire, or light of any kind, sadly listening to the howlings of the angry storm that threatened them with dissolution; then suddenly aroused to greater terrors by the Crashing of immense trees that carried all before them in their course; and at length driven to the extremity of climbing their own roofs, there to endure the rude combustion of discordant elements until the morning should bring to their relief some vehicle employed in the humane duty of saving the lives of the unfortunate.
At Mangrove, whither a Mr. R. Connor informs us he went on Friday morning, a native well known by the name of Branch Jack declared to him that he had seen a young man with a bluejacket & white trowsers sink under a pile of rubbish, and rise no more. Such piles of rubbish, which are frequently driven down with considerable force, often accumulate within a very short space of time, and are a compound of numerous floating substances, such as masses of corn stalks, weeds and grasses, trunks of trees, posts, pales, and whatsoever else the strength of the torrent forces towards the centre of the river, from whence they drive upon some head land, where they continue to augment, until the superior height and consequent rapidity of the flood forces them downwards to the sea, together with the stacks of grain; one of which latter was met by the Elizabeth Henrietta six miles at sea, with several dead pigs upon it, that had either famished or perished from the severity of the weather.’¹⁰³

1819

'...in 1819: "A respectable settler, in the neighbourhood of Parramatta, early one morning observed a chief of, of the name of Harry, and several of his tribe, passing with their fire rather too near his stacks of corn: the settler went to them, and remonstrated on the impropriety of, saying, the fire might easily be communicated to the loose straw, hence to the stacks: and, however unintentionally, cause the destruction of his property. the chief calmly replied, 'You know we must have our fire; the country is ours, you must take care of your corn'." '¹⁰⁴

4^th of October, 1822: Crop failure

‘The caterpillar has been threatening destruction to the next year's crop of wheat. About three weeks since the lands in the interior, particularly cultivated parts, became suddenly invaded with hosts of this devastating insect. A respectable farmer at Castlereagh has given us an account of the manner in which they take possession of a field; they extend to a great length in equal line, and thus in myriads regularly march forward, carrying all before them. The leaf is first devoured, and then the stem down to the surface of the ground. What is most astonishing in those destroying creatures is, that they disappear as suddenly as they come forth; they become buried in the earth, and of them no more is perceived. In about April 1810 the fields were ruined for some months; no herbage was left for the cattle; but, in that season of the year, the effects could not be so serious as is contemplated at this juncture; the mischief that may be done with the wheat, if we are not blessed with a few heavy showers, it is feared, will be incalculable.
In addition to the above, we have just learnt from Dr. Harris, of the South Creek,¹⁰⁵ that the ravages of this terrible insect (a kind of grey grub) are deplorable. This Gentlemen informs us, as a specimen of the effects, that are likely to be apprehended, that 70 acres of promising wheat, upon the estate of Sir John Jamison, have been so far destroyed, as to remove even the expectancy of 20 bushels being saved!¹⁰⁶

1824: Drought

On the 16^th of January 1824, William Macarthur wrote from Camden to his brother John in England concerning the effects of the latest drought: “This is the third successive dry season with which we have been visited and truly we agriculturists have good reason to complain of their disastrous effects. … Every tree every shrub curling up its leaves, the fruit not a quarter its usual size, withering and dropping from the trees utterly unfit for use at the time when we usually enjoy it in perfection. The grass not displaying a vestage of verdue on the open grounds and scarcely any in the Forests. The Earth cracked in every direction with seams one and a half and two inches wide and several feet deep. The streams, the pond, all shrunk into insignificance and many completely dried up.”¹⁰⁷
The anonymous X. Y. Z. wrote a number of letters describing his journeys around the colony. This extract from an account of a journey to Bathurst is important in showing the transformation in the wealth of those settlers who were able to send their herds over the Blue Mountains. It is important in showing how the settlers attempted to emulate their English heritage.
‘The south creek can boast of a number of rich and substantial settlers, who, making their farms home stations, have their large flocks and herds depasturing over the mountains—some in Argyle, and some at Hunter's River. The immense and certain profits of breeding stock in those fine countries, have raised to wealth and independence, many in this neighbourhood, who, but for their sheep and cattle, must have remained in their original obscurity. Now their houses are furnished with all good things in abundance, at whatever price, and two or three hundred pounds is not considered an object for the advantages of sending a son a voyage to England, for the benefit of a good education.’¹⁰⁸

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