CHAPTER XII. 

 RETROSPECTIVE REFLECTIONS. 



Unfortunately, history is very silent in reference to those sturdy 

 pioneers, who left their native homes and faced with stout hearts 

 anc? keen intellects the wilds o-f New South Wales in the late 

 thirties and early forties. 'Tis said: "The poor go forth to war to 

 fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others, 

 and they are called heroes." But greater heroes were those men 

 who left their native lands on account of pernicious land laws, to 

 seek new homes in the wild bush of Australia. Yes; and those 

 men who rebelled against the laws of their country, which they 

 considered unjust, and were sent to Australia, and afterwards De- 

 came her best pioneers and settlers, were also heroes in the true 

 sense of the word. But many hundreds of them lie in uncouth 

 graves unknown. We should make no excuses for mentioning this 

 subject, as our nation has been long enough before the world to 

 justify us in dealing with it as a fact in the world's history. It 

 may indeed legitimately be made the subject-matter of documents, 

 and the reasonings of individual minds, and may thus become public 

 property. 



: To revert, however, to the question of assimilation as a potent 

 factor in cattle breeding, we will glance at the breeding of Mr. 

 George Tate's cow, Tot of Oakdale. As has been stated alsewhere, 

 Mr. George Tate's father, whom we may term a native of New 

 South Wales, as he was born at sea on his parents nearing the port 

 to fulfil an engagement with Mr. Surveyor Oxley, at Camden, com- 

 menced cattle breeding at Broughton Village, near Gerringong, in 

 1856. His first stock were cattle specially selected from Henry 

 Osborne's cattle bearing the HO brand. Later on he purchased 

 heifers from Messrs. Hawdon and Coman, of Kiora and Eurobo- 

 dalla, in the Moruya district. He then bought a bull from Mr. 

 Boxsell, of Broughton Creek, which he called Boxsell. After this, 

 it may truly be said Mr. Tate's herd became famous. He, how- 

 ever, became smitten with the pure Shorthorn craze in the early 

 seventies, and purchased a bull named Napoleon from Messrs. 

 Barnes and Smith, of Dyraaba, Richmond River, and later still 

 another, Prodigal, from Mr. Thomas Lee, of Woodland, Bathurst. 

 About this time Mr. Gabriel Timbs, of Terry's Meadows, possessed 

 one of the best types of the Major bull, bred from an HO cow, 

 which Mr. Tate purchased and placed in his herd. This bull was 

 exhibited, and obtained first prize, at the Kiama show in 1879. 

 His son, Mr. >George Tate, of Oakdale, Kangaroo Valley, has since 

 followed in his father's footsteps, find we are, therefore, quite jus- 

 tified in placing his great cow, Tot of Oakdale, on the list of 

 celebrated Illawarra cows, and also as an object-lesson of the as- 

 similation of blood in dairy cattle breeding. Before committing 

 ourselves to any definite statement, it would be necessary to com- 

 prehend fully the relation which each strain used in producing that 

 animal bears to each other. To do this we must examine in de- 

 tail each of the elements claiming prcponderence. Of course, in 

 the absence of details relating to the breeding of Tot of Oakdale 

 this cannot be done at present. 



When Newton proclaimed to the scientific world the fruits of 

 his profound calculations, how many of his disciples could flatter 

 themselves that they were able to confirm them by their own convic- 

 tions? It is in a less scientific degree so with cattle breeders. One 



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