Part 10 (2/2)
XXII
AMONGST THE SHEEP
Within the memory of men who have not yet reached middle age, sheep-rearing in Australia was a gamble. At one time large fortunes might be made, at another the fruits of long years of thrift and labour might be swept away by causes which appeared to be outside human control. Now the industry has become a science. The settler may make more or he may make less, according as the world price for wool is high or low. He has his welfare in his own hands, however, and has only to go the right way to work to make certain of a living.
The removal of the rabbit-pest has been particularly complete. The Prince saw wire fencing, extending in some cases in unbroken stretches for thousands of miles, which is at once so high and so deeply embedded in the ground that rabbits can neither burrow beneath nor climb over it.
Once a paddock, fenced in this way, has been cleared it remains permanently free. The princ.i.p.al measures for clearing are the systematic ploughing of every warren, which effectually stops the burrows, and thereafter the driving by dogs and hors.e.m.e.n of such rabbits as are above ground to the fences, where covered pits, led up to by long converging lines of wire netting, have been prepared in advance. The rabbits follow one another through drop entrances into these pits, thousands being sometimes captured in one night on a single run. The operation has only to be repeated, in one paddock after another, to free an estate completely. The value of the rabbits and their fur covers most of the cost involved. One may meet gigantic crates on wheels, each drawn by a dozen horses and sometimes containing twenty thousand rabbits, _en route_ to factories where the skins are cured and the flesh prepared for export. By these means many runs have been completely cleared, while others are in course of being similarly dealt with.
As regards methods of fighting drought, in addition to the help given by the railways in moving sheep from drought-infected areas, to regions where the gra.s.s has not dried up, the storage of fodder in good years to make up for deficiency in bad ones, is a further measure adopted.
Artesian borings, even where they are inadequate for irrigation purposes, will water millions of sheep where the surface supply is defective.
It was at one time feared that the tapping of the subsoil water over tens of thousands of square miles in New South Wales, where the geological formations are such as to render this cla.s.s of enterprise remunerative, would gradually exhaust the supply. Experience over a number of years, including prolonged periods of drought, however, has not confirmed this apprehension. The Prince was shown wells which had been running for twenty years without intermission. In some cases, it is true, fresh borings have had to be made, but it has been discovered that the failure of the old ones is almost always due, not to any deficiency in water-pressure below ground, but to the silting up or the corroding of the pipe itself. Fresh bores yield full supplies, close alongside those that have given out. Restrictions are rightly imposed by Government upon the sinking of more than what is considered a reasonable number of wells in any one area, and up to the present, in the entire sheep region visited by the Prince, this arrangement has allowed sufficient supplies to be forthcoming for the watering of all stock, even in such periods of prolonged drought as that from which this part of Australia had very recently emerged.
Minor enemies of the squatter are the black carrion crows, creatures justly execrated by every back-block man. They are not unlike English rooks, but have the diabolical habit of attacking sick sheep and newly-born lambs, not infrequently pecking out their eyes. They are also charged with poisoning the wounds they make, so that a sheep may die which appears to have been only very slightly pecked. The harmless looking galahs, white parrots with pink b.r.e.a.s.t.s, make themselves only one degree less objectionable by eating the grain. Both of these pests, however, are being got under, with the growth in the number of sportsmen with scatter guns in each district. The Prince shot several galahs, and if his bag did not include any carrion crows this was chiefly because the good work of shooting them had already been so efficiently done.
Another trouble of the squatter, the silting up of his fences with leaves and dust in the hot weather, until they disappear and sheep and cattle stray over them unimpeded, is also being successfully overcome.
On one estate enormous machines like snow-ploughs were shown, which were periodically pulled by horses along the windward side of fences subject to this mishap. Floods come only occasionally, but the squatter has declined to allow himself to be defeated by them. The Prince saw the bones of many a stray sheep that had been drowned in the last visitation of this kind. It is indeed extraordinary that such a thing should occur upon a table-land two thousand feet above sea level, where rain is ordinarily so scanty that drought is continually feared. The very rarity of heavy rain, however, makes the conditions such that the water-courses may be inadequate to carry off any sudden downpour, with the result that the flooding, when it does occur, may easily be very extensive, as the country for hundreds of miles on end is almost absolutely level.
Motor-cars have been used successfully to convey thousands of sheep, three or four at a time, from flooded areas to banks where they could exist until the water subsided. In other cases boats have been brought from incredibly distant rivers to carry stock to safety. Much has also been done upon men's backs, for the squatter does not allow his sheep to perish if anything within human strength can help them.
In this part of Australia the gra.s.s is so thin that from two to five acres are required to support each sheep. This accounts for the immense size of the runs, which extend in some cases to hundreds of thousands of acres. One of the results of so much grazing s.p.a.ce is that epidemics are almost unknown. On one of the runs the Prince took a hand, with power-driven clippers in sheds, where one man shears, on the average, more than a hundred sheep in a single day, the wool fetching up to twenty-two pence a pound. Fleeces so ticketed indicate the neighbourhood of the wool millionaire, and he was to be met in all stages of opulence.
A run carrying fifty thousand sheep, each yielding a profit of ten s.h.i.+llings in the year for wool alone, is by no means uncommon in this part of Australia, men who had established themselves in pre-war days, in quite a modest way, upon land leased from the State, not infrequently finding their incomes multiplied a number of times over as the rates for wool increased. The greater part of these profits has remained in the country, and much of it has been put into the development of the runs, and the improvement of the breeds of sheep, horses and cattle on them.
In one of the stations a five-thousand-pound bull had recently been bought, and cows were valued at a thousand pounds apiece. On another, three rams were shown to the Prince which were considered to be worth six thousand pounds, being an average of two thousand each.
The methods of development adopted varied according to the financial position of the owners. A squatter with a long-established run who had paid off his mortgages, and had money in hand, would ordinarily keep more sheep upon a given area than his less prosperous neighbour, for the reason that he could afford to move them by rail in years of drought.
The man more recently established, with whom money was not so plentiful, would keep his land more spa.r.s.ely stocked. In one case only six thousand sheep were being raised, though the run would have supported twice that number in an ordinary season. Here the owner did the whole of the routine work of the place, with the a.s.sistance only of his two eldest sons, lads in their 'teens, and occasional hired hands for shearing and fencing.
The run possessing the five-thousand-pound bull was worked upon more expensive principles. It employed highly paid managers, overseers and stockmen all the year round, and was regarded as so up to date in its methods as to be quoted as a state model of efficiency and a sort of compet.i.tive Elysium for jackaroos. Both methods of working seemed to be successful, and both estates were making money.
The heavy drop in wool prices that is now taking place will no doubt reduce the amount of the profits presently to be made. There is no reason to apprehend, however, that the industry will not adjust itself successfully to the new state of things. Fortunes in the future may be harder to make than in the past, but the necessaries of life are a.s.sured to all engaged in an industry so self-supplying as is that of sheep-farming. The area suitable for it is still practically unlimited, and the open-air life it offers will continue to attract young fellows anxious to get away from the confinement of the town and the office.
As regards the climate, all that I can say is that as far north as the Prince's travels extended, the winter conditions then prevailing were delightful. The nights were sharp, and the days full of suns.h.i.+ne, and of a temperature that induced to outdoor work of every kind. Never have I seen healthier looking people than those who make this part of the world their permanent home. The children that the Prince found a.s.sembled in surprising numbers at every stopping-place, were st.u.r.dy and well developed. That the summers on these breezy uplands are sometimes hot was testified to by occasional underground chambers constructed so as to afford shelter in the middle of the day. Every one agreed, however, that the nights were cool, and the health and longevity of the community phenomenal. The interesting claim was also made that the very warmth of the sun in summer was itself an important factor in keeping down disease alike in men and sheep.
The lowlands along the coast of Northern Queensland, where such tropical staples as sugar-cane, plantains and coco-nuts are grown in quant.i.ty, were hardly reached, though Brisbane, the most northerly seaport visited by the Prince, was upon the outer fringe of this important region. In Brisbane the climate was distinctly hot, though the inhabitants looked strong and full of health. Further north, where the temperatures grow higher, we were told that numbers of Italians are settling in and doing well. They have found conditions not altogether dissimilar from those of their own country, and are developing labour able to deal to some extent with the difficult problem of sugar-growing.
On leaving Myowera the Prince proceeded by train to Sydney. On the way civic receptions were held in his honour at a number of centres. He stopped off at Dubbo, where white-dressed V.A.D.'s, each with a wand of yellow-flowering wattle, made a bower over his head as he pa.s.sed from the railway station on the usual inspection of returned men. At Wellington he found a crowd waiting to cheer him beneath flowering orchards s.h.i.+vering in wintry rain. Blayney, although situated upon the chill slopes of the Can.o.bolas mountains and said to be the coldest place in New South Wales, produced amongst its guard-of-honour a cavalry officer from India in the turbaned uniform of the Fifteenth Lancers, who had returned to his home in Australia when peace was declared. Another place visited was Bathurst, where a procession through the town took place, and where the decorations and receptions were on a very extensive scale. In the course of his reply to a civic address, presented in this city, the Prince said his visit in the interior had given him a glimpse of real Australia. He had seen the richness of the country and had learnt the desolation that drought and floods could produce. ”Many,” he added, ”have suffered losses, and while sympathizing with their hard fortune, I trust the next few years may be years of plenty and bring them all they desire.”
On arrival at Sydney the Prince went at once to the _Renown_. Later in the day, his official tour having ended, he drove unescorted to the races, which he enjoyed like any private individual. The courtesy of the large gathering of race-goers was such that, although everybody wanted to see him, and much cheering took place, the stewards had no difficulty in preventing any inconvenience.
Before finally sailing, the Prince spent four days in Sydney, saying good-bye to his friends, and receiving them in the _Renown_, which he made his home. Amongst those he entertained were the Commonwealth Governor, the Prime Minister, the New South Wales Governor, the State Premier, and the princ.i.p.al Commonwealth and State Officials. His staff, meanwhile, was kept busy receiving and dispatching his replies to a mountain of warm-hearted farewell messages, of which the following, from M. Fih.e.l.ly, acting Premier of Queensland, and head of the most advanced Labour Government in Australia, may be taken as a sample:--
”Your Royal Highness's visit will always be gratefully and affectionately remembered by the Government and people here, who found the greatest delight in your presence amongst them, and who will henceforward regard you as a new link uniting the British peoples. We hope your Royal Highness will have a safe and pleasant homeward voyage, and that long life and uninterrupted happiness and good health will be yours. You came to our land as His Majesty's most effective amba.s.sador to us and we ask you to be our envoy to him, bearing renewed a.s.surances that the lofty ideals which inspire our race are a living active force in Australia to-day.”
Amongst the individual replies dispatched by the Prince perhaps one of the happiest went to the Royal Australian Navy, which, after expressing thanks for escorts and other services, and wis.h.i.+ng good luck to all, ended with the characteristic request that the main-brace might be spliced.
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