AUSTRALIAN SHEEP FARMS. 39 



yarn 84,000 yards, or (nearly) 47! miles: a pound of 

 combed wool has however been spun into a thread of 

 168,000 yards, or nearly 95-^- miles; and the same weight of 

 cotton into 203,000 yards, or over 115^ miles."* 



The great sheep-farming- colony of Australia is New 

 South Wales, whose flocks number nearly 57 millions 

 Queensland follows next with over 19 millions 

 Victoria has a little over 13 millions South Au- 

 stralia a little over 7 millions, and West Australia 

 above 2 millions making a total just over 99 millions 

 of sheep, f 



The British possessions in South Africa also, mainly 

 consist of a pastoral country sheep do particularly 

 well, and in 1891 ^2,619,924 worth of wool and 

 hair were exported from Cape Colony; together 

 with nearly half a million worth of skins and hides, 

 and ^46 8,2 2 1 worth of ostrich feathers, besides further 

 quantities from the Colony of Natal, not included in 

 these returns. 



New Zealand has also a most promising future be- 

 fore it, as a pastoral country; and really we do not 

 know where we have ever seen a finer lot of sheep, 

 than we have met with in this flourishing colony. 

 After visiting some of the great meat preserving esta- 

 blishments however, we regret to have to chronicle a 

 serious depression in this industry, which however we 

 trust is only of a temporary nature. The more rainy 

 nature of the climate confers upon New Zealand an 

 immense advantage over Australia as a pastoral and 



* Engineer of May 17, 1889. 



f Extracted from Statesman's Year-book for 1896; edited by J. Scott 

 Keltic (from returns of the different Australian colonies). 



See Brown's South Africa, published in Cape Town, 1893, 

 pp. 46 and 48. 



