The north-eastern districts of Tasmania are only now attracting general attention, owing to the recent discoveries of tin; and Mr Weld undertook his long journey on horseback because he was desirous of seeing for himself enough to enable him to judge of their capabilities both as mining and agricultural districts. The result, as will be seen, sufficed to convince him that the future of Tasmania will be materially affected by the development of these regions. The north-eastern corner of the island is chiefly hilly, and even mountainous; but it contains large tracts estimated at fully seventy thousand acres of undulating and almost level land of very superior quality, and the soil of a great part of the hills themselves is exceedingly rich. Mr Weld describes the country as being almost entirely clothed with the most luxuriant vegetation. The Eucalypti on the flats and rich hill-sides attain a great size; and the valuable blackwood, the native beech or myrtle, the silver wattle (_Acacia dealbata_), the sassafras, and the tree-ferns and climbers, add beauty to the forest. The tree-ferns are most remarkable for the great profusion and luxuriance with which they grow, reaching occasionally a height of thirty feet, and being thickly spread over the whole district. The region, Governor Weld says, may be described from a settler's point of view as a 'poor man's country;' that is, it is best adapted for settlement by men who will labour with their own hands, and who have sons and daughters to work with them. The following anecdote is suggestive, and is worthy of reproduction in its entirety: 'In the heart of the district I remained a day at the comfortable homestead of a most respectable settler, a native of Somersetshire, named Fry, who, with the assistance of his wife, four sons, and five daughters, had in eight years cleared and laid down in grass about two hundred and fifty acres of the three hundred acres he owns, milks fifty cows, and lately obtained a prize for cheese at the Melbourne Exhibition. I could not but be struck at the indomitable energy of this family, which had penetrated alone into a then pathless forest, and attacked its huge trees with such determination, doing everything for themselves, working hard all day, and at night taught lessons, prayers, and even music by the father.' Capitalists, Mr Weld adds, would find such a country too expensive to clear; but the man who can always be cutting down or ringing a tree himself, by degrees sees the light of day break largely into the forest, and though he will not make a fortune, he will make a home and an independence, and all his simple wants will be supplied.