CHAPTER VI. 

 FOUNDING THE ILLAWARRA HERDS. 



Hitherto we have been forced to lall back upon the personal 

 private opinions of writers wlv> have long since passed away from 

 the scenes of Australian bush life as the expounders of the explora- 

 tion, discovery, and development of the dairying lands of Xew 

 South Wales, whose statements might be convicted paragraph after 

 paragraph by the sweeping accusations of a smart but superficial 

 writer ; bu; o.i tlie other hand the writer is not prepared to allow 

 that what Ins already been written in the foregoing chapters can- 

 not withstand the light of an Australian noonday sun, but we are 

 entering upo.i a new era in our history a tinu when dairying t>e- 

 came a separate industry, a time when its history ceased to be a 

 mere -e:'ies of records or a catechism of even Is. 



Prior to this era men oi capital took up largv are-.- of land de- 

 pastured stock thereon, and milked cows but once a day, the chief 

 income being the progeny thereof. But our fathers and mothers 

 were migrating in hundreds to Xew South \Val s. Having torn 

 themselve^ away from the fascinating scenes of their native heath, 

 with the love of a home firmly entrenched in their breasts, and 

 being born, as it were, in the home of the dairy cow, they very 

 c.uickly adopted the habits and customs of bush life, and with thv 

 aid of the clearing lease system, then in vogue, and a few head of 

 cattle soon supplanted the large landholder and grazing right sys- 

 !ein- which had obtained for nearly half a century in Xew South 

 Wales. Two instances, which the writer can vouch for, will suffice 

 to show what had to be faced by those men and women who laid 

 the foundations of dairying on a sound basis during the years from 

 1840 to 1865 in this country. In 1840 my late father migrated to 

 \u-tralia. One morning shortly afterwards he found himself in 

 Sydney, friendless and penniless. Th? fallowing morning he was 

 in \Vcllongong, having had to carry my mother and an only child 

 . >n his back through the waves, waist deep, to the shore. That 

 *ame evening he was on top of a bullock dray which wa-. loaded 

 with general merchandise en route for Marshall Mount, the iiume- 

 stead of the late Mr. Henry Osborne. The morning after he 

 was placed in charge of a dairy cows and horses. There he re- 

 mained -for about six years. In the January of 1846 he started for 

 the Kangaroo Valley with packhorses and mules to undertake the 

 management of a -large dairying and catt le -breeding concern tor 

 Mr. Osborne. "Thou wert faithful in small things, I shall place 

 thee over many," -eeins to have been his master's idea, ior mere 

 iii y father remained another six years. The only inlet and outlet 

 worth the name being what was ever after called, the "Id butter 

 ira.-k. The next the writer wishes to refer to occurred immediately 

 the pa- -ing of the Robertson Land Bill. The late Mr. John 

 ilanrahan and his brothers-in-law, \-\illiam and John l-avi>. and 

 (ierard Arm>trong men who had penetrated alm-'.-t evciy nook 

 and ravi:ie on the South Coast in search of cedar armed with a 

 -mall packet coinpa--. bru-h hook and axe-;, cut their way into the 

 dense bu-h of \Yingecarri!>ee, ;n:d having -elected land, quicklv 

 to w.-rk to i--tal>li-h dairy farm-. In those days there were 

 nly three hon-e- between the Jamhero, Mountain and I'.errima, 

 gfs, Sh'ppley'-. and Thro-hy'>. Shortly afterwards thriv- 

 MI.U tovvn-hip- -prang up. These are two out <;f the many similar 

 in-taiu-e> with which the hi-tory ,>i tin- de\ I of !~h.- dairy- 



iny; i. Mlu-try MippHe- u- <lr.ri;ig ilio-e year- which are about to 



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