Instead of employing the poorer labourers on costly and unnecessary public works, he persuaded them to take employment in the country with the farmers and squatters, who were rapidly opening up the interior parts of the colony. He settled many on small farms or stations of their own, but in this he was greatly impeded by the high price of land; for Wakefield's friends in England were not yet convinced that their favourite scheme was defective--they attributed every mishap to the incompetence of Governors Hindmarsh and Gawler. "To lower the price," said they, "will be to ruin the colony;" and lest such a thing should happen, they raised the price of all lands, whether good or bad, to one pound per acre. But many of those who had bought land in the first days of the settlement had been so anxious to part with it during the crisis that they had sold it for much less than it cost them; and thus a great number of the poorer people became possessed of land at very moderate prices. In 1839 there were but 440 acres under cultivation; three years afterwards there were 23,000 acres bearing wheat, and 5,000 acres of other crops. So rich and fertile was the soil that, in 1845, the colonists not only raised enough of corn to supply their own wants, but were able to export about 200,000 bushels at cheap rates to the neighbouring colonies, and even then were left with 150,000 bushels, which they could neither sell nor use. So rapid a development of resources and so sudden an accession of prosperity have probably never occurred in the history of any other country. #2. Mineral Wealth.#--Such was the success attendant upon careful industry, exercised with prudence, and under favourable circumstances; but the colony was to owe yet more to accidental good fortune. During the year 1841, a carrier, while driving his team of bullocks over the Mount Lofty Range, had been obliged, by the steepness of the road, to fasten a log to the back of his waggon in order to steady the load and prevent its descending too quickly. As the log dragged roughly behind on the road, it tore great furrows in the soil, and in one of these the carrier noticed a stone which glanced and glittered like a metal. On looking more closely, he saw that there were large quantities of the same substance lying near the surface of the earth in all directions. Having taken some specimens with him, he made inquiries in Adelaide, and learned that the substance he had discovered was galena, a mineral in which sulphur is combined with lead and small quantities of silver. The land on which this valuable ore had been found was soon purchased, and mines opened upon it. At first there was a large profit obtained from the enterprise; and though, in after years, the mines became exhausted, yet they served to call the attention of the colonists to the possibility of discovering more permanent and lucrative sources of mineral wealth.