Requisitos de un instrumento de medición

It is also Our Will and Pleasure that in all grants of land to be made by You, as aforesaid, regard be had to the proftable and unproftable acres, so that each grantee may have a proportionable number of one sort and of the other, as likewise the breadth of each track to be hereafter granted be one-third of the length of such track, and that the length of such track do not extend along the banks of any bay or river, but into the mainland, that thereby the said grantees may have each a convenient share of what accommodation the said harbour or river may afford for navigation or otherwise.304

The 1:3 Instructions not only focussed on river access, they also attempted to provide every grantee with the opportunity to thrive, by providing equal access to both the high and poor quality soils. Tasmania has an extraordinary range of microclimates. While the Tasmanian Aborigines understood the nuances of the climate and topography, with the wet west coast or the dry midlands, for example, this was knowledge the Europeans had to acquire.

304 _{Emphasis added. Phillip’s Instructions re Land Grants, 22 August 1789, HRA I (i), 126.}

Despite soils being largely determined by circumstances including elevation, proximity to water, and underlying geology, there remains great variation even along a river edge. Two soils were favoured by the earliest settlements in Van Diemen’s Land – Brown Kurosol and Brown Chromosol. Today the primary uses for these soils are natural and dry (modifed) grazing, and they are not considered to be primary soils for cropping in Tasmania.305 _The

area around Back River, where the New Norfolk settlement would frst be laid out, was described by Meehan in 1804.306 _{This area was chosen to resettle the occupants of the}

failing Norfolk Island settlement. It took several years to be enacted, but the sites of New Norfolk and Norfolk Plains were found to be suitable for new settlement. Many of the evacuees were sent to establish settlements in those, and several other locations around the island (including Sorell, Evandale and Sandy Bay).307 _{The evacuees came to Van Diemen’s}

Land from an island of characterised by such fertile volcanic soils that the settlers were reported to be given ‘abundance without labour’. While only given ten to thirty acres of land, the Norfolk Island plots were much more productive than the larger compensatory grants they received in Van Diemenʼs Land.308 _{The Norfolk Islanders expressed much}

dissatisfaction about their changed circumstances, fnding the allegedly ‘extremely fertile’ soils of the Back River to be inferior to their previous allotments.309

Monmouth 0, the map drawn of the Derwent River in 1804, contains a number of such comments of the lands Meehan observed, as the surveyor sought out potential settlement locations. It was on the grounds of these comments that sites were chosen for expansion, rather than extensive tests or experimentation. In recommending specifc locations, however, the surveyors based their decisions on experience, along with visual and tactile cues, as they evaluated the vegetation and the actual feel of the soils.

Risdon Cove and New Town Bay (the site of the frst organised free settler grants) as well as possibly some parts of New Norfolk, all have the same Brown Kurosol soil: Government Hills (264141), a soil today used largely for grazing, or set aside for conservation. On the lower slopes this soil is well suited to agriculture, as a light clay with moderate permeability that allows for drainage and nutrient retention, while the fats can be susceptible to 305 _{Tasmanian Planning Commission, ‘Soil Indicators and Distribution: State of the Environment Tasmania}

2009’.

306 _{Meehan, ‘Monmouth 0’.}

307 _{West, The History of Tasmania, 26–27.} 308 _{West, 36–37.}

waterlogging and fooding. A map of all the New Norfolk plots granted prior to the arrival of free settlers in the 1820s, however, shows that the majority of the riverine intensive sites here were made of Bushy Park Plains (298122), an alluvial Brown Chromosol that stretches up to Macquarie Plains (fgure 37). Although this soil has less area than the Government Hills type, it was more popular in the frst years of this settlement, and today many of the foodplains along this stretch are used for hop growing, and have been since the 1820s, while the rest of this land is generally used for cropping and grazing. This soil has a variety of loam mixes at different stages, with moderate permeability, again keeping the danger of waterlogging low (except on the foodplains), while retaining high soil fertility.

The other soil favoured by early New Norfolk grants was the Heathy Hills (273141), in the hills surrounding Back River. As the name suggests, this soil has a hilly profle, but those 1814 grants that do sit on Heathy Hills are on the fat sections, featuring quite sandy soils - loamy sand to sandy clay loam. Only a minority of the 1814 grants are primarily on this soil, but many of the back boundaries stretch to it. This soil may have moderate drainage

on the fats, but it is vulnerable to fooding and waterlogging. The number of grants on the Bushy Park Plains soil testifes to the preferability of it for farming in the early days of the New Norfolk settlements. The grants on Heathy Hills were an inevitable result of expansion – there were too many initial settlers to ft

onto the Bushy Park Plains but they still needed to be grouped together for security and control, and therefore spread into the surrounding area.

The Grey Kurosol (South Esk River (393121) and Powranna (394121)) around Longford (the riverine intensive Norfolk Plains settlement) is also used today for grazing and cropping. The river terraces have sandy loam and moderate permeability, again permitting adequate water drainage without losing all the nutrients. The foodplains, however, have a low permeability – as their name suggests, this makes them prone to fooding and waterlogging.

These soils have very different textures: sandy loam of Norfolk Plains feels gritty and only just holds together in a ball, while light clay is smooth and adheres into a ball easily.310

However the colonial farmers chose their lands, it is clear that they made informed decisions, choosing fertile soils that could be worked without complication. While infuenced by modern ideas of improvement, Evan’s description demonstrates the low- maintenance nature of these early grants:

… no regular system is followed; and it is surprising that the produce should be so great as has been represented, from land so ill managed, and to which so little attention is paid, sown annually without any change or attempt to fertilize it.311

310 _{Brown, ‘Soil Texture – Measuring in the Field’.}

311 _{G.W. Evans, A Geographical, Historical, and Topographical Description of Van Diemen’s Land (John Souter,}

1822), 65.

Figure 37: New Norfolk settlement to 1816, on the main soil categories. Note the dominance on Chromosol soils (ASC).

Although the soils in these early settlements are varied, there are several unifying factors that drew the colonists to them. The underlying similarities are obvious when the codes are viewed together (Figure 38).

As previously explained, each digit represents a different factor that forms the particular soil. By laying out the codes of the riverine intensive, it is apparent that each of these soils is very similar, in every category except the rock type. Government Hills is the most dissimilar, but it is also problematic because of the large area it covers, the urbanisation and changing land use of some parts, and the fact it was not the most popular land in the frst large-scale settlement plan at New Norfolk. Likewise, although several grants are located on Heathy Hills, it was only used when the neighbouring Bushy Park Plains had all been granted out. The three soil types most popular among some of the earliest areas opened for grants, however, all have a measured annual rainfall within 500–750mm, with undulating plains between 0 and 300 metres above sea level. These were conditions that suited colonial farming practices.

Intermediate free grants included in this study cover a signifcantly larger area of land than riverine intensive, both individually and as a whole. The result is that their boundaries cover fve times as many soils as riverine intensive. Their codes show large variation in rainfall (from 375–500 mm through to one area with 1500–2000 mm per annum), but this is partly due to the grants stretching back further into the hills, where these conditions can be quite different from the riparian land below. These soils can also be quite far-reaching, beyond the lands alienated by these early settlers who may not have taken in acres in the wettest areas. Nonetheless, the altitude remains predominantly low, with fourteen of the twenty-one soils prevalent between 0 and 300 metres above sea level, while the topography is dominated by undulating plains and low hills.

Figure 38: Soils in New Norfolk and Norfolk Plains (For a full description of the categories, see appendix eight)

While rivers often stem from springs at higher altitudes, the riverine intensive plots at New Norfolk and Norfolk Plains are all between 50 and 150 metres above sea level, at the bottoms of valleys. From their lived experience of the river and wold systems of the British Isles, the explorers, surveyors and settlers knew that valley foors were better suited to cultivation than the hills. They therefore gravitated to these areas where the land is more fertile, fatter and more accessible. Here the settlers found slower fowing rivers that could be navigated by larger vessels, and less climbing for foot access. Even at slightly higher altitudes, the land chosen for the intermediate free plots is relatively level, as seen at Bothwell and through the Midlands (fgure 40).