FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



potatoes, and pumpkins were being produced, and at times gave the 

 whole aspect a most luxuriant appearance, besides supplying the 

 settlers with invaluable crops, averaging uncommonly well as regards 

 quantities and values. 



The grape vine was also tried in a fe\v places in Illawarra, the most 

 successful by Mr. James Robb, on his Riversdalc Estate, near Kiaina. 

 Mr. Robb had got hold of the idea from a Mr. M. Peron, a Ftench 

 scientific voyager, who had previously placed Mr. Macarthur, of Cam- 

 den, under a debt of gratitude -for showing him how to produce high- 

 class wine. Mr. Robb engaged Mr. Nicholas Craig, and spent a lot 

 of time and money experimenting with the grape vine, but eventually 

 gave it up and commenced dairying and agricultural pursuits, tor 

 which he considered the district more suited. 



Tobacco growing was also tried in several localities. Mr. Michael 

 Hindmarsh, of Gerringong, was probably the most successful grower, 

 but he eventually gave it up and adapted dairying and agriculture gene- 

 rally as being the best suited for the district. 



Fruit growing in the -forties and fifties was just as common as the 

 production of milk and butter, as almost every home had its orchard. 

 Mr. Spearing, of Bulli, and Captain Plunkett's Balgownie Estate were 

 for years recognised as remarkable for their fruits. But it would re- 

 quire a long list to enumerate the many excellent orchards that were 

 in full bearing between Bulli and the Shoalhaven River in the "forties 

 and fifties. Peaches were so plentiful that the farmers fed their pigs 

 with the windfalls of the teeming orchards. Nothing could surpass 

 the excellence of the peaches of early Illawarra either in size, quan- 

 tity or quality. 



To get back to the dairy cattle. Few things are more remarkable 

 or so extraordinary as the evolution of the Illawarra breed of dairy 

 cattle. We have extraordinary records showing the multiplication of 

 the domestic animals which estimate the number of such animals 

 throughout the colony in 1800 as being about 1044 head of horned 

 cattle, 6124 sheep, and 203 horses ; while in 1850, or about sixty two 

 years after the foundation of the settlement, there were in New South 

 Wales alone 1.360,100 head of horned cattle, 7,026,000 sheep, a id ITI 2co 

 horses. 



But, when we turn our attention to the record of the doings of the 

 early dairymen of Illawarra and the Shoalhaven Valleys, there is at 

 once an absence of material by which those who have not been long 

 associated with the districts, and the breeds and management of the 

 various herds of cattle that have been used by the early settlers, could 

 formulate an idea as to how the Illawarra breed was evolved. 



There has already been given in this article an account of those men 

 who went in largely for cattle raising in Illawarra, Shoalhaven. Argyle. 

 Monaro, and the Lachlan River districts, and the vast opportunities 

 which were at their command by way of posses-ing themselves of the 

 best strains of the many breeds of cattle that were then to be found 

 in Europe or the British Isles. It lias also been pointed out that the 

 localities where those men held their holdings were almost unique 

 in the manner of building the stamina of our dairy herds, owing to 

 .lie great variety of soils and climate within an easy radius from any 

 given point of the coast to the westward tableland. Further still. 

 those men soon grasped the idea of settling the people on the bush 

 and scrub lands of their estates by letting out such lands on the clear- 

 ing lease system. To give practical example of the system in yogue 

 it will suffice for our purpose to mention one case, which, on the 

 closest investigation, will be found to correspond with all similar 

 methods of settlement on the bush and -erub lands of the coast. 



In 1841 Mr. George Grey landed at Wollongong with a host of 

 other emigrant-, and after spending two years gaining experience he 



186. 



