CLXVI, ECONOMIC ASPECT OF ARTESIAN BORING IN N.S.W. 
are provided by means of excavations and wells—the 
expensive nature and magnitude of these works necessary 
to withstand a period of drought render large paddocks 
indispensable, the object being to make one serve as large 
an area of country as possible. The disadvantages are at 
once apparent, when the concentration of large numbers of 
stock in their daily journey to an from the water, the con- 
tingent expense of attendance, the deterioration of the 
fleece by reason of the dust, the waste and destruction of 
feed by trampling, and of water by stock swimming, and 
loss by bogging, are considered. 
On the other hand, a well located bore, with channels 
carrying the flow for miles through paddocks, materially 
alters the position, and affords a double frontage, as it were, 
to a running stream, superior in many respects to a river; 
it admits of smaller paddocks, which will carry far more 
stock in proportion to a large paddock served with only 
one watering place. The enormous traffic to and from the 
water is avoided, and the dust and waste of food is con- 
sequently reduced toa minimum. Nor do the stock require 
the same attention, for the risk of the bogging of weak 
animals is entirely removed. What the presence of water 
running through a paddock means to lambing sheep, those 
following pastoral pursuits can realise without explan- 
ation. It is not, I think, an exaggeration to say that a 
paddock so watered will carry 20% more sheep at less cost. 
than under the first described conditions. The rainfall of 
the west is but small, and taken all round may be said to 
average about 12 inches in the year; and even after expen- 
Sive water improvements are effected, taking season by 
season, the country will not carry with safety more than 
a sheep to 8 or 10 acres. To those acquainted with stock 
raising in more favoured lands, this fact will probably convey 
an idea of the aridity of the country more than any further 
