The “jackeroos” were divided into classes, each with its special nickname. The “gold tail” paid sometimes as much as fifteen hundred dollars for the privilege of watching the sheep and learning how to handle them. He usually stood well with the proprietor and had something of a place in society. The “silver tail” paid nothing and, as a rule, got nothing except experience, while the “copper tail” was paid a small stipend for his work. The “experience” of the “gold tails” usually consisted in hunting, galloping at breakneck speed over the vast plains, horse racing, and making love to any attractive girls they could find. After a year or two some returned to Old England. But many stayed on and became real sheep men, winning their share of the Golden Fleece.
To-day the “jackeroos” are sober and serious young fellows, mostly sons of overseers, managers, and small graziers, who get wages from the start. Their status differs from that of the other station hands only in their having separate living quarters and, on some ranches, eating at the owner’s or manager’s table.
Like the men, the women on the sheep stations are much out of doors, and many of them have in times of necessity taken over the management of great flocks.
Shearing sheep is done with machine clippers, which are quicker than hand shears, less wasteful of the wool, and not likely to wound the sheep. A good workman will shear one hundred sheep a day.
Australia supports sixteen sheep for every person in her population. Millions of acres of land unsuitable for farming or cattle furnish sufficient pasturage for sheep.
A big sheep station nowadays is, as I have said, a large-size business proposition, requiring competent managers and overseers. On the more important stations there are bookkeepers and storekeepers. Nearly every one has its blacksmiths and carpenters, its gardeners, hostlers, garage men, and men of all work. The managers are skilled men who get high salaries, for the station’s profit depends largely upon them. They are usually expert sheep breeders and are always trying to improve their stock. I know of one manager, for instance, in charge of fifty thousand sheep, who asserts that he has increased his wool crop more than seventy-five thousand pounds a year by developing sheep that yield heavier fleeces. At an average of, say, thirty cents a pound, an additional seventy-five thousand pounds of wool would mean twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars a year more profit, or enough to pay the salary of an expensive manager several times over.
I might be inclined to doubt this manager’s claims had I not learned from government officials that the average weight of the Merino fleece for all Australia has been increased by three pounds. This is largely the result of expert breeding. Some of the best fleeces now run to eight and nine pounds each.