COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 



1387 



about ,7,000,000, while the total worth of the sheep there pastured scarcely reached half 

 that amount. The returns for the year 1889 show a very different condition of things. The 

 value of cattle is quoted by Co-hlan at about ,8,120,000 for that year; while that of 

 the sheep is quoted at .18,750,000. Since 1875 the number of cattle in the older 

 colony has been regularly declining from over three millions in that year to about one 

 million and three quarters in 1889, the ratio of total value being preserved by the 



1KH.INDA VALE STATION, l.AM 1 1 I Kl.D. 



advances in the prices of 

 cattle of late years. Signs 

 are not wanting of a re- 

 newed interest in New South Wales, but it 

 is not likely that there will ever be again so 

 great a proportion of cattle as before. The 

 increase for 1889 was quoted at 118,685, 



and large numbers have been brought over from Queensland, travelling under the 

 charge of men of the class known as "over-landers." This task of "over-landing" is some- 

 times a hazardous one, the mobs of cattle being often composed of wild and unruly 

 beasts, and the journey being rendered difficult, sometimes by the rivers in flood that 

 have to be crossed on the way, and at others by the want of water during the 

 periods of protracted drought. The chief breeds of cattle now in the colony are the 

 Short-horn, Hereford, Devon, Black-polled, Ayrshire and Alderney breeds, with their 

 crosses ; of these, the greater number are Short-horns, which amount, with their crosses, to 

 1,031,865, while the other breeds and crosses make up somewhat more than 709,700: 

 The cattle, as a whole, are of a good average quality, as the introduction of pedigree 

 stock, of the breeds named, from England has done, and is doing, much to improve 

 them. Australia has always been famous as a breeding-ground for horses. The Aus- 

 tralian horse, so well known in India and elsewhere, is descended from an importation 

 of pure-bred Arabs from India in the early days of the colony, and latterly from the 



