In the meantime the one thing desirable in reference to Australian wines, is that the people of the country should drink the produce of the country, not only because it is wholesome, but also because it is cheap. The usual drink now consumed at public-houses is brandy,--so called,--which is a villanous, vitriolic, biting compound of deadly intoxicating qualities, and is sold at 6_d._ the glass. Though I found the South Australian wine to be “heady,”--drinking it after the fashion in which wine is drunk,--it is a beverage absolutely innocent in comparison with the spirits which the publicans sell; and it can be sold with profit at 2_d._ a glass,--the glass being a small, false-bottomed tumbler, about as big as an ordinary claret-glass at home. The wine can be sold by the grower fit for use at 2_s._ 6_d._ a gallon, and the gallon in the hands of the publican would run to twenty-five “nobblers” of wine. This would give a profit satisfactory, we may suppose, even to an Australian publican. A nobbler is the proper colonial phrase for a drink at a public-house. It would be very desirable that the men of the country should acquire a taste for drinking their own produce. As men have done so in all vine-growing countries, they will probably do so in South Australia, and when that time shall come the growing of grapes will be profitable. Already the acreage under vines is very large. It must be remembered that grape-growing,--as is also hop-growing,--is an agricultural pursuit requiring great capital, and that the produce from the acre is very large. A grower with a hundred acres of vines on his hands has probably as great a stake in his vineyard as a farmer with a thousand acres of wheat has in his farm. In South Australia the acreage under vines exceeded that devoted to gardens, orchards, potatoes, lucerne, or artificial grasses. I annex a table, showing the number of acres under cultivation in South Australia in the year ended 31st March, 1871, with the number devoted to each class of growth,--premising with reference to the second mention of wheat, that cereals throughout all the colonies are grown for forage for cattle. They are cut green, and made into hay, and then stacked. SOUTH AUSTRALIA, YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH, 1871. Total average under cultivation 957,482 acres.