Rice Paper is the pith of the Tong-t-sao—a valuable Chinese tree.
THE SELECTOR and LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.
EMIGRATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES.
People who are accustomed to sit half the day with their hands folded, over a bright November fire, talking of hard times and other standing grievances, will do well to read "A Letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia, edited by Robert Ganger;" and study an annexed system of colonization as a remedy for their distress. The Letter is written by a plain-sailing, plain-dealing man of the world, and though on a foreign topic, is in a homely style. We are therefore persuaded that a few extracts will be useful to the above class of thinkers and readers, as well as to others who do not, like the great man of antiquity, sigh for new worlds.
Climate and Soil.
All that you read in the works of Wentworth and Cunningham, as to the healthfulness and beauty of the climate, is strictly true. There are scarcely any diseases but what result immediately from intemperance. Dropsy, palsy, and the whole train of nervous complaints, are common enough; but then, drunkenness is the vice par excellence of the lower orders; and the better class of settlers have not learned those habits of temperance which are suited to the climate of Naples. The two classes often remind me of English squires and their grooms, as I used to see them at Florence, just after the peace; masters drinking at dinner, because they were abroad, and after dinner because they were Englishmen; the servants drinking always, because wine and brandy were cheap. Perhaps a generation must pass away before the people here will accommodate their habits to the climate, which is that of Italy, without either malaria or the sirocco.
The soil of New South Wales is not particularly fertile. The plains of the Granges, and of the great rivers of China, the lowlands of the West India islands, the swamps of the Gulf of Mexico, and even the marshes of Essex, produce crops of which the people here have no conception; but then, as we are without great masses of alluvial deposit, so are agues and intermittent fevers absolutely unknown. In point of natural fertility, I am inclined to compare this soil to that of France; and I have no doubt that, if the same quantity of agricultural labour as is employed in France, were here bestowed upon an area equal to the French territory, the quantity of produce would fully equal that of France. Timber, coal, iron, and other useful minerals, abound; the harbours and rivers teem with fish; cattle of all sorts thrive and multiply with astonishing rapidity; every fruit that flourishes in Spain and Italy comes to the highest perfection; and Nature fully performs her part in bestowing upon man the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life.