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All you have done and all you propose to do in the management of our concerns appears to me most prudent and beneficial. . . I think the fall of Stock must ere this have operated upon the price of land if it have not it will for nothing can give a good value to land but a good market for produce and until the Colony can find some extensive export land and cattle will sink in value together - Taking this view of the state of things I have been induced once more to try my fortune in a small adventure consigned entirely to your management and I feel confident that if prudence and good sense can insure success it will prove successful in your hands. I impose no restrictions upon your judgment except upon the subject of credit upon that my mind is made up and I request that no credit may be given .
You have never informed me whether you got the Lease of the Sydney Cottage renewed I am much pleased at the Grant of the Swamps they make a desirable whole of the Farm to secure us from interruption.
I am very glad that you proceed so smoothly with the Governor and if you can negotiate an exchange of the Seven Hills Estate for Land at the Cow Pastures do, considering its contiguity you ought to have a larger quantity but I leave the arrangement entirely to you. [...]
My dear Eliza,
I know not what I can say of our mode of life, that will give you a correct idea of it. It is a mixture of town and country life; and yet in many respects unlike anything you can have experienced. Our climate is delightful, and we have in high perfection and in great abundance the fruits of warm and cold climates. In our garden, which is large we have Oranges, Lemons, Olives, Almonds, Grapes, Peaches, Apricots, Nectarines, Meddlars, Pears, Apples, Raspberries, Strawberries, Walnuts, Cherries, Plums. These fruits you know. Then we have the Loquat, a Chinese fruit, the Citron, the Shaddock and the Pomegranate, and perhaps some others that I may have forgotten to enumerate, such as the Cherry and Guava. We have an abundance, even to profusion, in so much that our Pigs are fed on Peaches, Apricots and Melons in the season. [69] Oranges and Lemons we have all the year round, yet there is a particular season from May to August (our winter) when the trees yield a regular crop. I have I perceive, omitted to mention the Fig, of which we have many varieties and in abundance. The Gooseberry and Currant have not hitherto thriven at this settlement, but at Van Diemen's Land they do well. We grow wheat, barley, oats, we make hay, at least I do, and so does Mrs Macquarie but the practice is not general. We feed hogs, we have cattle, keep a dairy, fatten beef and mutton and export fine wool. A variety of avocations arising from these pursuits keeps the mind pretty busily employed.
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