After the Gold Rush of the 1850s , the Government had a new problem of dealing with the population influx sparked by the rush. Its general solution to the problem was the various Land Acts of the 1860s and 1870s. These were designed to settle people on the land as small farmers , Essentially, those parts of regional Victoria as yet unclaimed were surveyed and parceled up into small allotments of up to 640 acres. People applied to select an allotment that they fancied. They paid for half of the allotment on selection (at a price of £1 per acre) and paid rent on the other half for a period (mostly set at 7 years). At the end of the period, if they had paid out the balance of the purchase price of the land and had made certain improvements to it - if they had fenced it, built on it, and put at least 10 percent of it under crops - they were able to alienate the land, or secure outright possession of the title. Failure to meet the payments or conditions meant that the land was forfeited, this happened to many