The land in the immediate neighbourhood of Adelaide is very fine, and capable of supporting a dense population; it was therefore perhaps, good policy to divide it into eight-acre sections, valued at one pound per acre, which supported a body of agriculturalists, who found a ready and near market for their productions in the rapidly rising town. But there are few theories that will bear universal application; and the mistake made in the case of Australind was, in expecting to obtain the same result from principles which were to be applied under very different circumstances. The land adjoining the town-site of Australind is generally very indifferent, though the flats of the Brunswick and Collie Rivers afford perhaps some thousand acres of excellent land, but still not sufficient to maintain a large and dense population. The Company's property was divided into farms of 100 acres, and these were valued at 100 pounds each to the emigrants, who drew lots for the choice of site. When the settlers arrived and took possession of their respective grants, they soon discovered that if they all produced wheat, there would certainly be plenty of food in the settlement, but very little sale for it; whereas, if they intended to become sheep-farmers, and produce wool for the English market, one hundred acres of land would not suffice in that country for the keep of fifty sheep. The sections of one hundred acres were, therefore, far too small for the wants of the settler, who found that, although he might probably be able to supply his table with vegetables, he had but small prospect of ever applying his capers to boiled mutton, or initiating his family into the mysteries of beef a la mode. Disgusted with the narrowness of his prospects, and recoiling from the idea of a vegetable diet, the sturdy settler quickly abandoned the limited sections of Australind, and wandered away in search of a grant of some three or four thousand acres, on which he might reasonably hope to pasture a flock of sheep that would return him good interest for the capital invested. The Western Australian Company gave far too much for their land in the first instance, and were therefore compelled to set a much higher value upon it than it would bear. The ministers of the Crown, who have adopted the principles of Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, require one pound per acre for waste lands; and the Company, though they purchased their property from private individuals at a somewhat lower rate, expected to sell it again at the same price. There is very little land (in proportion to the vast extent of poor and of entirely worthless land) throughout the length and breadth of all New Holland, that is worth twenty shillings an acre. In the more densely populated parts, arable land is worth that sum, and often much more; but in the pastoral districts, three shillings an acre is in truth a high price.