330 
AMEEICAI^ AGEICULTTJEIST. 
[August, 
Australian Wool Farming. 
The great, staple of Australia, fertile as tlieislanci 
continent is in most natural and cultivated produc¬ 
tions, is wool. Except where it is actually a 
desert, the country offers the best grazing for 
sheep in the world. Open pastures and park-like 
woods shadowing a perennially rich greensward, 
extend in vast stretches over a land whose only 
drawback is scantiness of water. But where the 
crops of the soil will not flourish, those on the soil 
will. The millions of acres which the farmer can¬ 
not make [iroductive, bring wealth to the grazier. 
Previous to the gold discoveries, thirty odd years 
ago, Australia w’as essentially a pastoral country, 
and since the gold fever has become a thing of the 
past the farmer has supplanted the miner again. 
Some of the greatest of the vast fortunes won by 
wool growing, originated in the mining excitement. 
Farmers and graziers abandoned their farms to look 
for swift wealth in the diggings, and wise men 
bought them in and thus laid the foundations of 
permanent prosperity. The writer met one sheep 
king in Queensland, who, in 1852, was a laborer on a 
farm. The ow'ner caught the gold fever, and his 
hired man bouglit him out with his savings. As 
one farmer after another in the district succumbed 
to the craze, the long-headed laborer borrowed and 
scra]5ed together money enough to purchase their 
estates at the low prices to which all property but 
mining claims had fallen. To-day he owns an 
estate larger than some European principalities, 
and counts his wealth by millions. One of his 
foremen is a son of his old employer. 
Australian shepherds lead a life, nearly as 
patriarchial as a Tartar’s. A wild and lonely exis¬ 
tence is theirs, and only men of iron physique 
could undergo it. Tw'o shepherds always chum 
together, one acting as hut-keeper, while the other 
is out upon tlie range. They travel from range to 
range as the grazing grows poor, and the country 
is dotted with the rude slab huts they find shelter 
in. Their fare is of the rudest, consisting of 
“ damper,” a sort of bread made of flour and 
water, baked in the wood embers, mutton and tea. 
Of late years the luxury of canned meats occasion¬ 
ally falls to their share. Tobacco is their only 
luxury, and a battle with the fleas which infest 
their huts, their only rest. It is not so surprising 
that such men celebrate a visit to town vvith a 
debauch, and like our owm cow-boys, sometimes 
become a terror to the peaceful townsmen. 
The Australian wool-grovver’s greatest enemies 
are the catarrh, the scab, the foot-rot, which is 
caused by marshy grazing grounds, bad servants 
who neglect the flocks, and the wild dogs. The 
latter were once a formidable foe indeed, but their 
destructive hordes have been greatly decimated by 
the hunters, who shot them by thousands, to ob¬ 
tain the bounty offered for their scalps. These dogs 
Will hunt a flock of sheep as systematically as men 
conduct a drive of deer. Thej’’surround and close 
in on them, rending and devouring ail in their 
path. Great flocks are often stampeded by them, 
when the sheep run until they drop exhausted, or 
struggle into some stream and are drowmed. 
The shepherd’s dog is as sagacious and true a 
friend to his woolly charges as the wild dog is a re¬ 
lentless foe. Sheep raising has produced in 
Australia a peculiar breed of dogs, different in 
AIJ AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD. 
many appearances from the European shepherd 
dog, but akin to it in all good qualities. These 
dogs seem to know all the sheep in a flock. They 
will hunt for stragglers miles away from the hut, 
and either drive them in or watch them, if they 
happen to be exhausted, until they gather sufiieient 
strength to walk. It is a common thing in travers¬ 
ing the grazing country, to come upon one of these 
noble brutes on guard over a strayed or broken 
down sheep, and woe betide the stranger who at¬ 
tempts to lay hands on his helpless protege. 
In addition to the wool crop, the Australians de¬ 
rive a huge revenue from the boiling down of 
sheep. Boiling down w'as originally resorted to on 
the occasion of a panic forty years ago, rvhen sheep 
could not be sold in the local market. Then the 
surplus of the herds was reduced to tallow, and a 
market for that commodity opened in England. 
Some years after, huge canneries for the preserva¬ 
tion of the mutton were started with satisfactory 
results. Now the sheep grower makes capital out 
of the flesh and fat of his flocks, as well as their 
wool. Another extensive trade is the preparation 
by salting and smoking of mutton hams, which are 
used for ship’s food throughout the Indian seas. 
The busy time on the Australian ranges is in the 
shearing season. As that time comes around, the 
wool tramps put in their appearance, tramping 
over the plains towards the ditlerent sheep stations. 
The wool tramp is one of those nomads like our 
harvest tramps in the West, whose labor is very 
useful when it comes in the right time, and who at 
all other periods are utterly useless beings to 
themselves and all the world. 
A sheep station is the centre or headquarters of 
a range. Here the proprietor lives, surrounded by 
his overseers and storekeepers. In addition to the 
proprietor’s and his subordinates’ houses, the 
station consists of a few shops, some barracks for 
the shepherds, and paddocks, covering hundreds 
of acres, all fenced and posted as stoutly as can be. 
The largest buildings at a station are the shearing 
and sorting sheds, and all important stations now 
appear to have huge steam presses for bailing the 
w’ool. At the smaller stations the hand-press is 
used. Small sheep-owners drive their herds in to 
the large stations and there sell the wool. 
This disposition of the wool-clip, has given ex¬ 
istence to a character in the shape of the buyer 
of wool, who is known among the small grow¬ 
ers as the “wool-worm.” The wool-worm will 
buy a clip while it is yet on the flock, and the 
improvident sheepmen take advantage of this 
and pay usurious interest for the accommodation. 
These wool buyers have the country distiicted. 
One never trenches on the other’s ground, and one 
and all are said to be willing to advance money on 
the clips several years ahead. The result is that 
many flocks are under perpetual mortgages, and in 
the end fall into the hands of the usurers, who sell 
them at once, for they find much more profit in 
buying wool than in raising it. 
As the shearing season comes around,"the flocks 
are driven to the stations where they belong. 
Watering carts keep the dust laid, as day after day 
the woolly legions come marching into the pad- 
docks. If the weather is rainy, they are slieltered 
in the large “ sweating sheds,” into which from 
two thousand to three thousand sheep can be 
packed at a time. When the campaign is ready to 
open, the “ yarders ” are mustered to duty, which 
is to keep the shearers supplied with subjects. 
Then the animals pour into the shearing sheds in a 
steady stream. They are kept in pens there until 
sheare'd, and then turned loose to be marked and 
penned until they are driven out on the ranges again. 
The fleece having been clipped, is passed to the 
wool tables, where it is sorted and “ skirted,” or 
cleaned of the rough dirt which adheres to it. 
Australian wool is divided into first, second, and 
third qualites, before it goes to the press. 
The laborers at the station work day and 
night in shearing time. From the proprietor and 
manager, down to the wool tramp, they enjoy only 
the briefest rest. The wool having been pressed, 
the bales are weighed and marked with the distin¬ 
guishing marks of the station. The transportation 
to market, or the nearest railroad station, takes- 
place in huge platform wagons, drawn by six or 
eight horses or oxen. These wagons carry from 
thirty to forty bales to a load. 
The station fills up with pedlers of all sorts of 
wares, not forgetting the “ sly grogsman,” who is 
the master of a bar-room on wheels. Between 
these and the regular shop-keepers, most of the 
money made by the laborers at the shearing, i-s- 
gotten rid of before they leave. The shearing 
over, the clipped flocks straggle out to the ranges 
again, the wmol tramp takes up his stick and de¬ 
parts, the proprietor makes his annual trip to the 
nearest seaport to settle business with his agent, 
A PROPRIETOR. 
and the station goes to sleep again. The lives of 
the sheep kings of Australia are not subject to 
the privations to which the shepherds are exposed 
of course, but they have also many uneasinesses 
and discomforts attached to them. Existence at 
the stations is lonely and monotonous in itself, and 
the fare, however abundant, by no means varied or 
elegant. Few of the sheep kings live as well as the 
American farmer, not because they cannot afford to, 
but because all their money cannot buy a luxury 
or comfort which does not exist. Their flocks and 
their wool-clip form the topics which engross them. 
