go NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Still there liave been considerable fluctuations in tlie number of our 

 cattle during tbe period mentioned. In the first place, there was a 

 heavy decrease through the losses from pleuro-pneumonia in the period 

 between 1861 to 1871. From the latter year^ again, through a rise in 

 the price, the number was fairly maintained till 1881, when it once more 

 began to decline, with a fall in the price occasioned by a heavy influx 

 of cattle from Queensland, which up to nearly that time had been 

 taking considerable numbers from us to stock up new country. This 

 decrease continued till 1889, since when, through the increase of selec- 

 tion, and the adoption of the practice now generally followed of running 

 small lots of cattle in the sheep paddocks, cattle are again gradually 

 increasing. 



General Description of Cattle. 



At one time there was a great lack of uniformity in our cattle in 

 quality and form, and much room for improvement. These defects 

 were to a large extent attributable to the great variety of breeds from 

 which they were descended. There is in them more or less of the blood 

 of almost all our British and Irish breeds, and even of the cattle of the 

 Cape Colony ; and, as if this was not enough of " diif erentness, " a 

 good many breeders in the early days, under the false notion that such 

 a course was necessary to the proper management of their herds, kept 

 up a continual round of changes in their bulls, to the perpetuation of 

 this incongruity and the deterioration of their cattle. The unenclosed 

 state of the country and consequent impossibility of keeping the different 

 breeds separate also tended to check improvement, aided as it was by 

 the scarcity of labour which followed on the outbreak of the diggings. 



Within the last twenty-five or thirty years a great change has taken 

 place for the better ; sounder ideas, too, on the principles of breeding-, 

 and the really valuable points of the cattle have come to be held ; the 

 runs have been enclosed and subdivided, heifer paddocks have been 

 formed, and large numbers of pure-bred stock of higher quality, for 

 which long prices were paid, have been introduced. The result is that 

 the beef cattle both in this Colony and Queensland will now in ordinary 

 good seasons compare most favourably with those of any other part of 

 the world. Nevertheless, our owners have still a good deal to do to be 

 in a position to carry out a profitable export trade in either live cattle 

 or beef ; and among other things which will call for their attention, the 

 following- may be mentioned : — 



(1.) They should continue to increase the eai-ly maturity, and 

 improve the quality of their cattle, and adopt a sound system 

 of cross-breeding for fattening purposes. 



(2.) They should see that their cattle are supplied not only with 

 sufiicient natural pasture, but also, in those portions of the 

 Colony where tillage can be profitably followed, with such 

 cultivated food as the lucerne, English, and other grasses and 

 green crops, so as to become thoroughly prime at an early 

 age, and furnish a steady supply of prime chilled and frozen 

 ])eef for the English and other markets. 



(3.) They should de-horn their young stock, and accustom those of 

 them intended for shipment to being tied up, and to take 

 cultivated food. 



