CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



When considering the birth and development of New South Wales 

 generally I have endeavored to take as lofty a view as possible of 

 the many shades of opinion possessed by the early pioneers in their 

 laudable endeavors to make homes for themselves and their families 

 in this land of their either forced or voluntary adoption, and have 

 rendered to all that justice which is due to them so far as my humb'.e 

 abilities serve me. 



When attributing, however, the cause of neglect to those valuable 

 types of dairy cattle that had obtained in the forties and fifties to 

 the beef craze that set in during those years immediately following 

 the discovery of gold, it must be distinctly understood such a state- 

 ment as that is not sufficiently far-reaching to cover the whole situa- 

 tion, as a large portion of the evil must be laid at the door of those 

 who in the past, as in our own time, are only too prone through, 

 possibly, the old human inheritance of perseverance to fall in line 

 blindly with every fad and fancy that may catch their eye or their ear. 



The reader may have observed that the prevailing idea of this 

 wo"k is this : Before modern breeders of dairy cattle entered upon 

 their business there were scores of breeders in the counties oi' Cum- 

 berland, Caniden, St. Vincent, Argyle, Murray, and Auckland who bred 

 types of dairy cattle assisted of course by new and extremely rrjh 

 pastures and a variety of climates, far and away superior in quality 

 and constitution to those we possess to-day in any part of 

 Australia. I am aware that a multitude of questions which will be 

 presented to my readers after perusing the pages oi this book. I 

 can, however, assure the reader of this fact : 1 am not aware that, 

 in any chapter of my book I have laid down erroneous propositions, 

 or expressed myself in ill-sounding terms by bearing false witness. 



It has been abundantly proved in the course of this work that the 

 great majority of writers on the origin of our dairy herds during 'he 

 past twenty years were either ignorant of the origin ^i our cattle, 

 or held back for prudential reasons the real facts. Speaking from 

 t \\enty-rive years o-f experience in collecting books and data on the 

 history of cattle, particularly the dairy cattle of New South Wales, 

 the writer can from the fulness of his heat sympathise with those 

 who possess a similar ambition. But on the other hand, one cannot 

 have anything but the most abject contempt for the fellow who will 

 wait until all the facts of the case are laid bare before him and then 

 set to and criticise a work of which he had been previously ignorant 

 or practically so, from the standpoint of an author. 



That New South Wales has made wonderful strides since its foun- 

 dation in 1788, as shown in these pages, does not by any means 

 ohow that this great country has reached the limits of those gigantic 

 leaps ci advancement. It is estimated that in 1825 we had 1345*9 

 head of cattle in the country ; in 1842 we possessed 897,219 head ; in 

 1851 there were 1.738,965 ; in 1861 these numbers had increased to 

 2,271 923 ; but in 1871, owing to the large areas of country being con- 

 verted into sheepwalks, the number of cattle had decreased to 

 2,014.888. Pleuro-pneumonia also played havoc among the cattle 

 herds during the decade 1861-71 and in 1873, by an Act of Parliament, 

 impor ations of cattle from oversea countries were prohibited. 



315. 



