Experiment Farm Cottage, in Harris Park, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia, is one of Australia’s oldest standing residences. It is located at the site of Experiment Farm, Australia's first European farmstead, which was itself created by Australia's first land grant.
In 1789, James Ruse was chosen by Governor Arthur Phillip to run an experiment to see how long it would take a man to support himself. Ruse was granted one and a half cleared acres (6,000 m²) of land, as well as assistance for clearing an additional five acres (20,000 m²). He was also provided with two sows and six hens. He was fed and clothed from the public store for 15 months, after which time he had become successfully self-sufficient and was granted an additional 30 acres (120,000 m²).
In October 1793, Ruse sold his farm to surgeon John Harris, builder of the substantial colonial cottage which exists today. Doctor Harris was a prominent citizen in the rapidly emerging colony, and was also friends with John and Elizabeth MacArthur of Elizabeth Farm, another celebrated early agricultural venture only a short walk away.
Experiment Farm Cottage was purchased in 1961 by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) and was the first NSW National Trust–owned property.
Famous quotes containing the words experiment, farm and/or cottage:
“To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God’s hand, his brain as God’s brain, his purpose as God’s purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort. As if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the pine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)