222 
LIVE STOCK, ETC., IN TASMANIA. 
weight little short of the prize animals exhibited at cattle- 
shows in England^ but they are not calculated to thrive on 
the comparatively thin natural pasturage. The Cheviots 
have been introduced, and, as might have been expected, 
are found to thrive prodigiously and to increase rapidly, but 
it is a questionable proceeding which would replace the 
Merino crossed with Leicester blood, yielding a fleece of fine 
wool of rather long staple, for a breed which, however harder, 
is remarkable for the vulgarity of quality in the wool through¬ 
out its fleece, and which scarcely bears a fleece heavier than 
that of the animal it supersedes. 
“ The amount of increase realised from breeding flocks in 
Tasmania is dependent to a great extent upon the condition 
(as to flesh) and health of the ewes, upon the nature of the 
pastures as to the abundance of grass, or the reverse, and 
upon the nature of the weather at that critical season. On 
good, well-sheltered pastures, with ewes in fair condition, I 
have often seen upwards of 100 per cent, saved; if at any 
time the yield falls much below 80 per cent., there is ground 
for suspecting some mismanagement; if it falls below 40 per 
cent., gross defects of management must have existed. One 
of the most ordinary causes of failure of increase in sheep 
husbandry is the very prevalent custom of over working the 
grazing, so as to produce an unnatural delicacy of consti¬ 
tution in the stock. 
" Sheep farming, from the earliest times of the Australian 
settlements as the resort of free colonists, has been regarded 
as the most profitable mode of investing capital. In flocks 
where there is a fair proportion of breeding ewes of wethers 
and other dry sheep, the clip of wool is considered to be 
more than sufficient to defray all charges of management, and 
the value of the annual increase becomes the net measure of 
profit accruing. There have occurred some singular vicissi¬ 
tudes in the value of sheep in the Australian colonies. In 
1809, prices were very high, in consequence of a large ex¬ 
portation for two or three years to the new colony of Port 
Philip, but in 1843 sheep were selling at 2s. Gel ., per head in 
that settlement, and at the same time fetching very low 
prices in Tasmania. The boiling-down process was discovered, 
and immediately prices assumed a comparatively high figure, 
and small capitalists who had purchased extensively at the 
previous extremely low rates, found themselves suddenly 
converted into men of large fortune. Many Tasmanian 
settlers became at that period large proprietors of sheep in 
Victoria, and were proportionately enriched/ 5 
The wheat of Tasmania, according to analysis by Mr. 
