The Sheep and Wool Industry 

 of Australasia 



CHAPTER I 

 AUSTRALIAN SHEEP HISTORY 



Australia's first sheep Captain McArthur's sheep Boiling down Sheep 

 numbers in Australia from 1792 to 1912. 



AUSTRALIA is at the present time the leading sheep and wool- 

 producing country in the world, thanks to those hardy old pioneer 

 squatters and a climate and pastures that the fine-woolled Spanish 

 Merino throve and did better on than those of its native land. 



The first sheep were imported into Australia from the Cape 

 of Good Hope about 1788. They were native Cape sheep, and 

 had very fat tails, which would weigh about 10 Ib. The fat on 

 the tail was used by the Dutch and Boer farmers as a substitute 

 for butter. Bowman, in giving a description of the Cape sheep, 

 says : " They are of every variety of colour, covered with a strong 

 frizzled hair, with the undergrowth mixed with it." Two or three 

 years later sheep were imported from India. They were miserable, 

 small sheep, growing very light and dark-coloured fleeces of hairy 

 wool. If Australian pastoralists had kept to these types of sheep 

 Australia would not at the present time rank as a country noted 

 for the excellence of its wools. The Spanish Merino is the sheep 

 that has made Australia famous, and the credit for bringing the 

 first sheep of this type into Australia is due to Captain Henry 

 Waterhouse. In the year 1789 he was sent by the authorities 



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