1383 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



widow involved in some claim on his behalf against the Dutch Authorities. The sheep 

 were, in consequence, for sale, and Kent and Waterhouse purchased twenty-nine of the 

 number. These were brought to Sydney in 1797, but of those who received a share 

 only Captains Cox and Macarthur properly appreciated the value of their acquisition. 

 They devoted considerable attention to improving the staple of wool by crossing the 

 breeds, gradually weeding out the inferior animals and selecting the finer breeds, until 

 they succeeded in producing a fine fleece, and, at the same time, in keeping the original 

 stock pure. When Macarthur visited England in 1803, he took some samples with him, 

 and, before a Committee of the House of Commons, succeeded in making out so 

 promising a case for the future of wool-growing in Australia under due encouragement, 

 that Lord Camden, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, was induced to extend his 

 patronage to him. The scheme he proposed was entered into the more readily as 

 England, just then engaged in the war with Bonaparte, had every interest in making 

 her manufactures independent of Spain, or any other foreign country, for its wool. Lord 

 Camden granted Macarthur ten thousand acres of pasture land for his experiments, the 

 grantee choosing the fertile district known as the Cow-pastures, and naming it after his 

 patron. He returned in his own ship, the Argo, in 1805, bringing with him two ewes 

 and three rams from the Royal flocks, and this small stud-flock was for fifty years 

 kept intact ; his land grant was afterwards largely extended, and from that time the 

 pastoral industry of Australia may be said to have made a fair start. Of course, Mac- 

 arthur had no idea of the future which he was founding. He saw only immediate profit. 

 The capacity of the western plains was then unknown, and the pastoral quality of the 

 rest of the Australian territory was still more a mystery. Nobody would have been 

 more surprised than he, had he been told that, in less than a hundred years from the 

 arrival of the first stud ram, the wool export of Australia would amount to more than 

 five hundred million pounds. In the meantime, the trade in wool thus opened up 

 with England furnished a remunerative market for all that the settlement could grow. 

 The importation of fine-woolled sheep continued, and in 1825, Mr. Richard Jones, a 

 Member of the early Legislative Council, brought a superior flock of Saxony sheep to the 

 colony, and other sheep were imported from famous stud-flock* in Erance and Spain. 

 It was found by Mr. Cox, of Mulgoa, that a more inland climate favoured the growth 

 of a finer fleece, and his experiments on removing still farther inland to Mudgee were 

 attended with so much success as to disclose the value of the western country. The 

 finest merinos were afterwards to come from this district. Meanwhile, it was found that 

 the Australian climate generally caused even the wool of the Spanish sheep to grow 

 softer, brighter, and more elastic, and through thinning it somewhat, made the fleece 

 longer, causing a decided improvement on the whole in the quality. 



Although the general statement is true that the Australian climate is favourable to 

 wool-growing, it is a vague one, because the climate of a country covering so large an 

 area must necessarily be very variable. When the fitness of Australia for wool-growing 

 was first discovered, the term Australia meant Sydney, and some thirty miles inland. 

 Now, it means from Sydney to Shark's Bay, and from the Swan River to the Gulf of 

 Carpentaria. The enormous expansion of the pastoral industry has, of course, led to 

 many observations as to the effect of climate and pasture on wool, and to the discovery 



