THE TOWNS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



263 



Dubbo is ordinarily associated with pastoral work on a large scale, with fierce 

 heats, long droughts, and that old Australian life which knew of little beyond mutton, 

 wool and beef, and the labour by which they are produced. In its earliest clays it was 

 the natural business-centre for the sheep and cattle stations of the lower Bogan and 



a 



X 

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Q 

 H 



the Macquarie. A slab-walled, bark-roofed shanty was the primitive style of building, 

 giving way in the ordinary course of development to the one-storeyed public-house, with 

 separate ends for squatters and bush-men. It is almost half a century since the first store 

 was opened at Dubbo, and forty years since the earliest holders of Crown grants tried any 

 experiment in agriculture. The drought-proof salt-bush was high and dense on all the 



