[1] It was originally published in The Argus on 22 February 1896 and subsequently reprinted in a collection of the author's poems, other newspapers and periodicals and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.

[1] The poem tells of the fortunes of Peter Simson as he hacks a farm out of the scrub to make a home for his family.

While reviewing the poet's collection of poems, Rhymes from the Mines, a reviewer in The Australian Town and Country Journal noted: "Among the 'Other Lines,' those on 'Peter Simson's Farm' and 'The Theoretical Selector' are eloquent of the real conditions of the battle between man and nature, and worthy of the consideration of those who talk lightly of the advantages of 'going upon the land.

'"[2] In a review of The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse edited by Walter Murdoch in The Herald from Melbourne a writer lamented the non-inclusion of some poems.

"The more realistic and sinister poetry of the Bush and of the dwellers therein is poorly represented; hut this defect is evidently due to copyright restrictions, and would doubtless have been remedied had the editor been able to draw on Boake and Lawson.