North-West Tasmania 1858-1910 : the establishment of an agricultural community
Date
1969
Authors
Stokes, Henry James Wynyard
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Abstract
Concerned with the economic decline of the colony,
the Tasmanian parliament in 1858 approved legislation
intended to settle small farmers in the often fertile
but heavily-timbered western half of the island. The
new act at first attracted many settlers to the forest
lands, most of whom had at least some previous experience
of farming, if little capital. But within a decade they
were threatened with ruin because of a disastrous fall
in Australian crop prices, the effects of which were
aggravated by the reluctance of a series of weak
ministries to build roads in the new settlements: that
most of the pioneers were able to keep their farms was
a tribute to their determination and the fertility of
the soil.
In the 1880s Australian population and overseas
markets began to outstrip food production and crop
prices at last rose, encouraging another influx of
settlers to the forest lands which continued, checked by
the depression of the early 1890s, into the first decade
of the new century. The farmer’s position was further
strengthened by the introduction of industrial dairying,
which reduced his dependence on the uncertain produce
market, and by 1910 the North-West was a well-established,
quite prosperous community of small freeholders.
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