Victoria, the smallest of the Australian colonies, had until recently
the largest population (June, 1897, 1,177,304) and also the largest
trade. In both respects, however, it is at present surpassed by New
South Wales. Victoria has owed its past pre-eminence to its GOLD
PRODUCTION. Gold was discovered in the colony in 1851, and for years
the output of the precious mineral was not less than $50,000,000 per
annum. The present output of gold in Victoria, however, is only
$10,000,000 per annum. Richer, however, than the gold-mines of
Victoria is the fertility of its soil. A large part of the soil is
exceedingly fertile--with irrigation one of the finest fruit-bearing
soils in the world. The arboreal vegetation of the country is
magnificent. Trees thirty feet in diameter rise to the height of 200
feet without a single lateral branch, and then 100 feet to 200 feet
higher still. Pear-trees grow to the height of eighty feet, with
trunks three feet in diameter. But as yet wool-growing, wheat-raising,
and vine-growing are the principal agricultural occupations of the
people. The principal agricultural export is WOOL--$25,000,000 worth
per annum. But a considerable portion of this comes from New South
Wales. The SHEEP kept number 15,000,000, the cattle 2,000,000. But the
colony still remains principally a mining community. Five ninths of
the population live in towns. Yet there are few towns, and two fifths
of the whole population live in Melbourne--a city almost exactly as
large as Boston.