"Feby 15th. Commenced shearing wheat, crop a good one.
Afternoon all hands employed in burning a small strip of grass all round the establishment as a safeguard in the event of the sweeping fires made in the bush by the natives coming so near as to endanger the natives houses. Men apparently becoming better pleased and feeding well on as much fat mutton as they can use, along with tea, flour and vegetables, good times for the women." (Neil Black)

This is an unwitting colonial description of what is now called a 'cultural burn', or the land care technique of pyroculture, in Wathaurong / Wadawurrung country. Anyone who has attended a cultural burn and listened to why and how they work will instantly recognise it and its intent. The author likens Aboriginal burners to 'Swings' who were rural workers in England protesting loss of work to farm machinery sometimes violently, including arson attacks, in 1830 and 1831, seeing the burn as a deliberate attack, even though it did not destroy buildings. In 1840 colonists had only been in this area for several years, while in longer colonised parts of NSW, they may have stopped cultural burns, leading to dangerous bushfires. It's not clear if the intention was simply to continue traditional land care, or also destroy colonial livelihoods, but either way it is clear that two very different and incompatible economies were in conflict over the same land.

'LOCAL INTELLIGENCE. The Blacks and the Bush Fires.—For the last fortnight, the country around the township has been in a state of almost continual conflagration and the fires have at last advanced into the very centre of the township, between the northern and southern portions. These fires however are very different from those in the brush and scrub of New South Wales, being much less dangerous to buildings and fences. In the open pasture land of this district, the fire marches along the grass at the rate of two or three miles a day, in a column of perhaps several miles front, and only a few inches deep, devouring all the feed in its course, but in general sparing the green shrubs and trees. It has been only through great exertion that some settlers have been enabled to preserve a few acres of grass on their stations. In some cases the fire can be beaten out with green boughs. Of course the blacks are the incendiaries. This is another argument added to the thousand and one already adduced in favor of the separation of the blacks from the whites. These "Swings" have it in their power to burn up the whole country, whenever such may be their will and pleasure. Now, we cannot see any great differences between burning a man's house about his ears, and burning all the grass of his station for although the injury will be repaired by time, still the immediate loss and inconvenience are very great.'

HW Bunburry describes pyroculture in Noongar country and stable Noongar settlement on the Murray River (WA) estuary in 1837 and compares it with similar practices in Lutruwita (Tasmania), noting also the impact of colonists stopping this form of land care. "The numerous and well beaten paths near the banks of the Estuary indicated the constant presence of considerable numbers, indeed no where had I hitherto seen even on the Murray [not to be confused with the Murray River in SE Australia] where the natives are numerous such distinct paths or so many groups of deserted huts as here, some of them made with some care of the paper bark."p25Fire management (this is made as a generalisation about Noongar country around the Swan River Colony, and Australia in general):"By these fires the country is kept comparatively free from underwood and other obstructions, having the character of an open forest through most parts of which one can ride freely; otherwise in all probability it would soon become impenetrably thick and although the soil would be improved, yet the labor and cost of clearing would be so greatly increased as to take away all the profits, and it would change the very nature of the country depriving it of the grazing and pastoral advantages it now possesses. This has been already proved in the case of Van Diemens Land, where in consequence of the transportation of the Natives to Great or Flinders Island, and the consequent absence of extensive periodical fires the bush has grown up thick to a most onconvenient degree, spoiled the sheep runs and open pastures and afforded harbor to snakes and other Reptiles which are becoming yearly more numerous. It is true we might ourselves burn the bush but we could never do it with the judgement and the same good effect as the Natives do, who keep the fire within due bounds, only burning those parts they wish when they scrub becomes too thick or they have any other object to gain by it. Upon the burnt ground they can easily track the Opossums, Kangaroo Rats, Bandicoots, Iquanas, Snakes and co which can elude their earch in the thick scrub which moreover is very painful to walk through..." pp77-78 Bunbury, H.W. Papers, 1834-1837 ACC 6895A/Vol 1 State Library of Western Australia

In discussing pyroculture in Noongar country HW Bunburry compared it with similar practices in Lutruwita (Tasmania), noting also the impact of colonists stopping this form of land care. "The numerous and well beaten paths near the banks of the Estuary indicated the constant presence of considerable numbers, indeed no where had I hitherto seen even on the Murray [not to be confused with the Murray River in SE Australia] where the natives are numerous such distinct paths or so many groups of deserted huts as here, some of them made with some care of the paper bark."p25Fire management (this is made as a generalisation about Noongar country around the Swan River Colony, and Australia in general):"By these fires the country is kept comparatively free from underwood and other obstructions, having the character of an open forest through most parts of which one can ride freely; otherwise in all probability it would soon become impenetrably thick and although the soil would be improved, yet the labor and cost of clearing would be so greatly increased as to take away all the profits, and it would change the very nature of the country depriving it of the grazing and pastoral advantages it now possesses. This has been already proved in the case of Van Diemens Land, where in consequence of the transportation of the Natives to Great or Flinders Island, and the consequent absence of extensive periodical fires the bush has grown up thick to a most onconvenient degree, spoiled the sheep runs and open pastures and afforded harbor to snakes and other Reptiles which are becoming yearly more numerous. It is true we might ourselves burn the bush but we could never do it with the judgement and the same good effect as the Natives do, who keep the fire within due bounds, only burning those parts they wish when they scrub becomes too thick or they have any other object to gain by it. Upon the burnt ground they can easily track the Opossums, Kangaroo Rats, Bandicoots, Iquanas, Snakes and co which can elude their earch in the thick scrub which moreover is very painful to walk through..." pp77-78 Bunbury, H.W. Papers, 1834-1837 ACC 6895A/Vol 1 State Library of Western Australia

'From Geelong the party proceeded in a north-eastern direction towards Mount Macedon, the near-est point to Port Phillip attained by Major Mitchell. As the plain country and the coast were left behind, the character of the soil and the scenery greatly im-proved, and the glowing descriptions which have been given of it were found to have some more solid basis than imagination. The trees, without becoming at all dense, increased in luxuriance; many tracts were found to which the fires of the season had not penetrated, and where they had, the young grass was shooting up with the usual vivid green peculiar to "burnt feed."'

THOMAS ALLEN.To Osmond Gilles, Esq.P. S. I beg leave to add to your notice the subjectthat has come under my observation relative to thenative fires that so destructively take place on thebest land of the greatest vegetative qualities, andwhich forms the truest and most certain criterion ofthe goodness of the soil; as when land is seen quitebare, from burning, is positive proof to a practicalobserver that the soil is of first-rate quality, butwhich to a superficial observer, ignorant of thecircumstance and cause, would absolutely considerthe best land to a comparative desert, and unfitfor cultivation. T. A.Funding for digitisation contributed by Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation