An occupation the profits of which are capable of such large additions by increasing numbers is apt to foster a spirit of gambling. In a season of bountiful rainfall it is almost impossible to over-stock country, and owners too often take the risk of availing themselves to the full of Nature's prodigality. Such a policy is most dangerous. When the time of more limited rainfall comes the owner of over-stocked pastures pays a heavy toll for his improvidence, whereas he who has regulated his numbers on the assumption of fair average seasons comes scathless through the time of trial.
Dairying comes more within the department of agriculture, as crops must be grown for feed, the dairy-farmer being necessarily the occupant of a very limited area. The benefit dairying has been to the small stock-owner can hardly be exaggerated. In old days the owner of a herd of 50 to 100 head could look only for a poor living, working for wages for part of the year whilst his family looked after the herd. Now he is a rich man. The monthly cheque from the creamery for a man milking 25 cows easily reaches an average of £20. Except in the few cases where the business has been conducted in a large way by capitalists, it is mostly an enterprise for small men. The work is unremitting, the herd having to be milked twice a day, but the rewards are sure and ample. Butter and cheese factories have sprung up like mushrooms in the last few years, there being now 79 in the State. The yield of butter for 1907 totalled 22,789,158 lb. As returns depend on the amount of butter-fat produced, owners have converted the ordinary breeds of cattle to good dairy herds by plentiful introductions of the true milking strains—Jersey, Alderney, Ayrshire, Holstein, and milking Shorthorn.
Many will probably wonder how cattle grazed over an area of many hundred square miles of country, which in the outside districts is probably unfenced, can be mustered or even kept on the run. Cattle are docilely subservient to custom, and once broken into "camps" will voluntarily seek repose in these shelters. On a well-managed station the crack of a whip will start any mob within hearing trotting for their camp, formed in a clump of shade on the creek, or, if shade is available, on some better galloping ground. Others, seeing them on the move, head towards the same well-known resort, there to pass the day till the shadows lengthen, only moving off in the cool of the evening to feed. If they are being mustered for branding, the cows with calves are "cut out" and brought to the stockyard to be dealt with; if for a butcher to select a draft of fats, these only are taken and delivered either on the spot or where arranged. At the general muster, which is only made every few years, as the cattle are brought in they are put through a lane in the yard, the long lock at the tip of the tail being cut short; they are thus easily distinguished on the run, so that only long-tails are brought in subsequently. A "bang-tail" muster is recorded in the station books, and, as all sales and other disposals are carefully noted and an allowance made of from 3 to 5 per cent. for deaths, it is not necessary to repeat an operation taxing horseflesh so severely at nearer intervals than three to five years. Stock-horses become very clever, and will turn and twist with a beast through the mob, the rider's whip playing on either side till the animal is run out. Large tailing yards are maintained in different parts of the run to avoid much driving, and at weaning time the weaners are herded for a month or six weeks and yarded at night, which has a quieting effect they never forget. A well-managed herd is noted for absence of rowdyism amongst its members. On a well-improved station the bullocks, heifers, and weaners will be in separate paddocks, and at a certain season the bulls are taken out of the herd and put in a paddock by themselves.
WOOL TEAMS, WYANDRA, WARREGO DISTRICT
HAULING CEDAR, ATHERTON, NORTH QUEENSLAND
Much has been written of the Australian squatter's life, both in fact and in fiction; yet the charm it exercises remains unexplained. The invigorating influence of perfect health doubtless has something to do with it, as well as the utter freedom and escape from all conventionality. Much of the bushman's time is passed in the saddle, and his dress consists of moleskin trousers, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbow, and a soft shady hat. He rises at daybreak and after an early breakfast starts his day's work. As frequently he will not return to the homestead till nightfall, his lunch is in his saddle-pouch, to be enjoyed in the shade by some waterhole, where he boils the quart "billy" that dangles all day from a dee on his saddle, and makes the inevitable brew of tea. Probably he has companions and is mustering a paddock half the size of an English county; bringing the sheep to the drafting yards, it may be to draft out the fats from a mob of several thousand wethers, or perhaps to take lambs from their mothers for weaning, or to separate the sexes in a mob of mixed weaners, or to bring sheep to the shed for shearing.
Shearing is of all times the busiest. At this season men, each usually riding one horse and leading another packed with his swag, roam the country in gangs and undertake the work at contract rates, which of late have been raised from 20s. per 100 to 24s. There will be from ten to forty men on the shearing board, according to the size of the flock; and in most of the large sheds men write beforehand to bespeak a stand. Shearers earn great wages; a good man will do from 100 to 200 per day, though the latter number is of course exceptional. The introduction of shearing machines has helped to increase the shearer's daily tally. A host of other men are employed in the shed. Boys gather the fleeces which they throw on a table where they are skirted, the trimmings being divided into "locks and pieces" and "bellies," and the rolled fleece is thrown on another long table at which the wool-classer presides. He is an expert, and orders each to its respective bin, according to quality—judged by condition, length of staple, and brightness. From the various bins so graded men feed the wool-press worked by two wool-pressers, who turn out, sew, and brand the bales, of an average weight of from 3 to 4 cwt. Wagons are waiting to convey these to the railway, horse and bullock teams being almost equally used. A whip cracks like a pistol shot, and with lowered heads, the bullocks straining at the yoke, the first team draws slowly off to the incomprehensible objurgations of the driver, an incredible number of bales in three tiers piled on the wagon and securely roped.