Home steading 



The whole proceeding is not in accordance with 

 the game laws, but when food is scarce, settlers are 

 not very particular as to their strict observance. 



A few days more and I figured I had felled 

 and prepared enough logs for a shack and stable, 

 and a rough measurement of the breaking showed 

 that Tom and the bulls had succeeded in turning 

 over nearly twenty acres. 



This was encouraging, and I took a turn withf 

 the discs and gave my comrade a rest. 



The sods lay flat and even, about four inches 

 in thickness, but Tom's work was not quite equal 

 to some beautiful breaking our Danish friend 

 had shown us, which his wife had done. 



The discs are a set of circular knives about 

 twelve inches in diameter, which cut up the tough 

 sods as they revolve. 



On the whole we had got on pretty well in our 

 tent, but just as we were preparing to break 

 camp, we had a strong southerly wind. The 

 surface of the breaking had dried with the sun, 

 and as the discs went to and fro, the wind blew 

 large quantities of the fine dust into our tent, 

 which was to leeward, covering our bedding and 

 getting into our food. 



This literally gave us a taste of the land we 

 had come to ; but as our work here was finished 

 for the time, we struck our tent, and loading 



78 



