26 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



country had been occupied. The herbage had improved 

 from being fed over, and the sheep throve on the various 

 salsolaceous plants.* 



In the same country a modification of the chmate 

 appears to have taken place. Tracts Avhere the pro- 

 spector had ridden vainly in search of water were, some 

 years later, occupied by stock. The procuring of water 

 by artificial means is the key to the transformation. 

 Waterholes were sunk, and dams thrown across the 

 slight falls or declinations of the plain ; and these, in 

 the wet season, become runs of water. | 



Settler after settler testifies that " the country is 

 now much improved for pastoral purposes. Inferior 

 grasses disappear, and superior grasses take their place. 

 146, 150. Imported animals, trees, and plants now hve 

 and thrive, where in forests comparatively few such 

 flourished before. J 



Indeed, a complete change of both vegetation and 

 climate followed the settler with his flocks and herds. 

 After a few years of feeding with stock water was 

 found standing permanently where it had never stood 

 before, and a tufty herbage sprang up by its side that 

 formed a natural sward. Flats that had been swamps 

 in winter or bare dusty ground with cracks in it in summer 

 formed a good level turf intersected with runnels cut 

 by the hooves of cattle and sheep. 



At the confluence of the Laclilan with the Mur- 

 rumbidgee for hundreds of miles the plains are covered 

 with a low scrub, with fine silvery grass growing in the 

 hollows (the destructive silk-grass). So it was in the 

 forties. In the fifties the whole of this country was 

 occupied. The herbage improved from being fed over, 

 and the sheep throve on the various salsolaceous plants 

 that abound. A similar transformation took place in 

 the Billabong country in New South Wales and the flat 

 box-country between the Edward and the Murrumbidgee 



* Sturt, in Victorian Pioneers, pp. 243-4. 



t Ibid., p. 240. 



X Bush Essays, p. 5. 



