VAN DIEMENS LAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 489, 10 April 1850, Page 3

VAN DIEMENS LAND.

On Thursday evening His Excellency accompanied by A; Clarke, Esq., private Sec- -

retary, returned to .Government house, from bis tour in tbe interior. On Monday the 11th, he left Hobart Town and proceeded by way of New Norfolk to Hamilton, where he next day visited Mr. Langdon, Mr. Sherwio, and the Cljde, where he examined the extensive system of irrigation carried on at that river with which he was much pleased. On Wednesday he breakfasted at Mr. Bethunes, and proceeded to Marlboro 1 , and thence on Thursday to Lake St. Clair. Here he might be said to have entered the pew Country. On Friday* having camped out the previous night, he returned by theDerwent and Dixon's bridge, to the surveyor's camp, where Mr. Gell has built a bridge, under Mount Charles, over which sixteen thousand sheep have already passed into the New Country. Having gone through King William's Plains, he ascended King William's mountain on Saturday, and had an exensive view of the surrounding country and down the valley of Rasselas, and then visited tho Guelf Plains and Mount Hobham, and after .which, he set out on his return to Victoria Valley, where he slept on Thursday night, and on Friday returned home by Mr. Bethunes, Hamilton, Elderslie, and the Broad Marsh to Hobart Town. The account of the country by the surveyors and those who have had sheep there already bears out what has been said of it, although it is as yet in many places, wet and covered with coarse grass. Where these have been burnt there is a luxuriant vegetation. The Plains are bordered and interspersed with gravelly ridges, affording dry bedding places for stock. The valley of Rasselas, is forty miles long, and four wide, and has been burnt by the surveyors. The runs are laid out not in rectangular blocks, but in lots of from two to ten thousand acres according to the natural division of the country not including the barren hills between. Orders for occupation will be given on certain conditions, until the surveys are actually made. The party at the Huon are working up towards Lake Pedder, within ten miles of which the party under Mr. Gell bad reached. — Hobart Town Advertizer, March 1. For some time back the every day complaint was the stagnation of business. Nothing doing, was the cry of every one you met. Without going into tbe fact that this was rather to be a( counted for by there being more to do that was to be done than nothing doing, we can at least say that the town is all alive at present preparing cargoes for California. The drays of wool from the interior have been succeeded by drays of odd looking cases coarsely made of paling filled with potatoes, apples, onions, carrots, &c, all prepared for California. The news of the den and there for vegetables of all kinds has given quite a stir to the farmers in the vicinity of the city. AH kinds of produce are looking up. It is even entering into the speculations of some that so bulky an article as hay may be sent down at a profit. Nor have we any doubt of it. There are now thousands of mules and hundreJs of horses collected at San Francisoo ; there is little for them to eat, and they are dying by hundreds. It is true that wild oats abound in the savannahs of that country, and that it is cut for the purpose ot fodder ; but this only lasts a very short time of the year ; no one thinks of storing it as hay for future consumption : there is no doubt, therefore, that hay would briog an enormous price. It is in the recollection of many that it once rose to Tuenty -seven pounds a ten in the Sydney market. This would pay even with all the heavy expenses at California. It would not be an unwise speculation at all events to feel the pulse of tbe market by a small consignment, of which the first cost would be trifling, say two pounds for the hay and ten or twelve shillings for pressing. — Ibid, March 5.