Squatters and Stations 23 



station one man is employed for every seventy- 

 five hundred sheep, an estimate which shows 

 that the pastoral industry provides permanent 

 work for a very small number of men proportion- 

 ately to its importance. 



The occasional work about a station, such as 

 the erection of fencing or the digging of water- 

 tanks, is usually let by contract. The men who 

 do this work have their own camp, and provide 

 for themselves without disturbing the economy of 

 the station, although they may draw stores (such 

 as groceries, meats, and other supplies) against 

 the money they earn. For the busy seasons on a 

 station, such as shearing time, numerous extra 

 hands are employed, on a system that will pre- 

 sently be explained. 



There are many stations where no sheep are 

 pastured at all, the whole run being given up to 

 cattle. The largest of these cattle-runs are to be 

 found in northern Queensland, where it is no un- 

 common thing to find a run five thousand square 

 miles in extent. Here is bred the long-horned 

 Australian bullock, sullen and dangerous, a wild 

 beast rather than a domestic animal. A very 

 different kind of station is this. The homestead 

 is a wooden building, with a roof of galvanised 

 iron, very hot in the noonday sun, but cooling 

 rapidly when evening comes. It stands on a 

 number of tall piles, and between each pile and 

 the house is a projecting tin-plate, beyond which 

 the destructive white ant is unable to climb. Here 



