MANAGEMENT OF DAIRY.

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home government with tales of the barrenness of the land, and the idle improvidence of the labourers whom they wish to exclude from its possession.

For the future we may expect fewer colossal fortunes and more settlers. Nothing but love and pride in well-tilled land can counterbalance the attraction held forth to the bone and sinew of colonization by gold-fields.

Settlers in the true sense of the term-families who have left the home country, determined to found a home in Australia-should lose no opportunity, consistent with their circumstances, in making that home comfortable.

Next to a garden a dairy is almost an indispensable luxury. A dairy should be cool, airy, clean, and well supplied with water. Although wooden bowls are in almost universal use in the colony, they are so difficult to keep clean in this climate that metal and earthenware are much to be preferred, if to be had.

At the same time dairying operations on a liberal scale will only pay near a large community, or with easy means of carriage. In one district butter will realize 3s. 6d. per lb., and in another 8d.

In the bush the milkers are generally cows with a calf. The calves get the milk all day, and are penned up away at night. The cows are milked in the morning, but a little milk is left for the calves; and often a calf is allowed to have a suck between times where a young heifer is inclined to hold her milk.

Under this plan of management each calf has a name, and comes out when called; but it makes milking a very long operation, and one man cannot milk more than ten or twelve cows in a morning.

It is advisable to break in as many cows as possible to be milked out of a herd, as it tames them very much; while calves brought up in the way above described are likely, if of a quiet breed, and not allowed to run wild, to remain quiet.

The following is the operation of breaking in a young heifer that has not received a good, original education :--

The "quiet" cows, having all been milked, are left in the yard with their calves by their sides, the young heifers with them, but their calves separated and penned up. Two men then enter the yard with a long hide rope (or lasso) and roping-stick; with this they throw the rope over the heifer's horns, pass the end round a post near the "bail" with one turn, and then, hauling and driving, bring her up to the post, where her head is fixed in the "bail," a sort of pillory in which she can move her head up and down, but not out or sideways. Her near hind

leg is then tied to a post with a leg-rope, her calf is let out, and the heifer is milked. When this operation has been repeated a few times, heifers of a good sort will go up to the bail at the word of command. A few large lumps of rock-salt for the cattle to lick at the milkingyard will very much promote their health and make them willing to come up.

In consequence of the difference of yield and the calf system, it will take two hundred bush cows to supply a dairy which fifty would support in England.

The man of small capital, after milking, must mount his horse and put all his cattle together on the run, and see every head on the camping-grounds, before he comes home, while his wife and family are hard at work in the dairy churning or salting down butter, or making cheese. This, varied by working in the garden, or taking a team to get in a few loads of firewood, may occupy each day of a small farmer for years.

Pigs and poultry hang round a dairy, and fatten on the skim-milk and whey without trouble. If there are any men at work near, few things pay better than bacon and ham.

It is essential for the safety and comfort of every settler to have one or more horses close at hand ready, without searching, to be saddled and used at a moment's notice, if anything should happen to the sheep or cattle. Many a valuable flock has been destroyed, and many a herd lost, while men have been finding and catching their horses.

A man of moderate means must always buy a mixed herd, containing a fair proportion of bullocks pretty well forward, for, if he start with cows only, it will be nearly three years before he has anything to sell. There is a colonial story of a young gentleman who, landing with the best introductions, was a few months afterwards seen on his way to Darling Downs with a herd consisting of fifty bulls.

It is calculated that bullocks averaging 800 lbs. lose about 100 lbs. in a journey of three hundred miles.

Port Phillip is a better cattle country than South Australia, and sends a good deal of beef across the river Murray on four legs.

The cattle in bush reacquire in many respects the habits of their wild progenitors. Such is the habit of camping, and such, too, the manner in which, like the wild cattle at Chillingham Park in Northumberland, they march in single file to water, the bulls leading; so too, when threatened, they take advantage of the inequalities of the ground, and steal off in the hollows unperceived, the bulls, if attacked by dogs, bringing up the rear.

The settler of small means will frequently, if respectable, be able to get stock to take care of as shares; indeed, the high rates of wages now ruling will extend this system, and do much for industrious farmers with little capital but large families.

Horses.

Horses must be purchased with the same precautions, and pastured in the same way, as cattle. They require the same kind of country, but are even more liable to break bounds. Two horsemen can look after a thousand head, although there are few now who keep up so large a stud. The stallions are generally run with the mares, and the herd becomes divided into small mobs of eight or ten each, headed by a horse; but it does not do to turn an English horse loose in this manner. Horse breeding makes very slow returns, but with moderate care and judgment are a safe investment.

The best breeds are either thoroughbred mares of English descent, crossed by Arab stallions, or Clydesdale or other cart breeds, for the road. Where roads have been constructed, horses are generally preferred to oxen for draught, and we consider Clydesdale preferable to Suffolk Punch or black Lincolnshire. Races take place in regular English style in almost every township. At the Homebush Park Races, near Sydney, on the third day five races were run, the smallest number of horses starting being five, and the greatest number fifteen; ten started for the second race. The sport is conducted by the Jockey Club Rules. The demand for the Indian market makes a considerable figure in the newspapers, but cannot be relied on, as it varies and depends on many contingencies.

It is not worth while to breed inferior horse stock at all; at the same time it will not pay a beginner to go to excessive expense for his stallions. In Australia, as in Europe, to breed half-bred horses on a large scale is a hazardous speculation; with the best sires and dams no one can tell how they will turn out; but a good Arab put to a good thoroughbred, or two good Clydesdales, will produce a fair proportion of useful, and a per centage of first-rate, animals. The best blood horses may do for the Indian market; the next in quality for sale to arrivals; the worst will make stockmen's horses, although for going after cattle a cobby horse that will turn on a cabbage-leaf is preferred.

The horse liked for India is about fifteen hands to fifteen hands one inch high, well topped, showy, compact, and well on his haunches-bays and greys preferred. Cart horses should be active, quick steppers.

To keep up good horse stock judgment must be exercised, not only about the sires and the dams, but, in drafting out inferior animals

annually to be sold at any price; some pains should be taken with the more promising colts. Many a lot of good horses are ruined by one bad stallion allowed to grow up with them. The superiority of the English horse is much owing to the general practice of castration.

Half the Australian horses are starved at one time or another during their colthood by the occurrence of a dry season, and hence they grow up undersized, ragged, ill-shaped. Those who wish to have superior horse stock should take the trouble to put into the ground a quantity of oats, barley, and maize to be stored for such contingencies. Where the land is good the expense of raising a few hundred quarters of grain will be trifling, for six hundred bushels of barley have been obtained from thirty acres, by merely ploughing in the seed and then treading down with a flock of sheep. The Australian horses are often fed on maize, which is easy to cultivate and to store.

Most Australian horses are badly broken; indeed, they are not broken at all, but only bullied into a semi-savage state, ill to mount, kicking, rearing, and buck-jumping when mounted. If it is determined to breed horses, it is as well to feed them and breed them carefully. Horses are as fond of salt as cattle, and it may be used as one mode of taming them. A really fine, well-broken lot of animals will always fetch a fair price in the ports, and are now likely to be more valuable than ever; but, as a general rule, a dozen good mares will be as much as most small settlers will find profitable; and a dozen good, well-bred, well-fed, well-broken colts will pay better than a hundred of the brutes which are sold under the hammer for £3 a piece, and not cheap then. Yet Australia, with its fine, dry climate and high class of pastures, affords as good breeding-ground as any in the world. Horses were quoted at auctions in Sydney at £3 unbroken to £25 for superior animals in 1851, before the discovery of the "diggings."

The powers of endurance of the Australian horse are very extraordinary. A relative of the author has ridden 150 miles in two days, and brought his horse in fresh, and on another occasion 350 miles in ten days.

It must be observed that, although the colonial horse is nearly, if not quite, as swift as the European racer on the turf, these long journeys are usually performed at a foot pace, walking about five miles an hour from sunrise until towards noon, then baiting at a hut or camping down for a couple of hours, and then making play again at the same steady pace until sunset, when, if unable to make a station, the traveller fastens his nag's forelegs together with "hobbles," which he carries with him strapped to his saddle, alongside his blanket, tea, flour-bags, and quart

pot, and turns him out to pick up his living until morning, and so pursues his journey from day to day, without needing corn or grooming. But on these journeys both horses and oxen give a great deal of trouble occasionally by wandering back to their old quarters.

A really good horse is one of the indispensable luxuries of bush life, which every man can have if he likes. A shepherd who is a good judge, or has a friend to choose for him, will often invest part of his savings in a blood mare, which his master ought not to object to being fed on his run, although he might prohibit sheep. This mare the shepherd finds convenient for riding anywhere on his own business, while she brings him an annual foal, and these foals, when got by a good sire, often turn out extremely valuable; for, being handled and ridden by the shepherd's children from a very early age, they become good-tempered and docile. It is a good plan to get a nice hack into trim previous to visiting the port of your district. The sale may pay all your travelling expenses. It is very much the custom in Australia for friends and patrons to give young children presents of stock, such as ewes, heifers, and mares. These, growing up and increasing, being fed on the share system, often amount to a very respectable marriage portion for a young lass. In this way a small settler's daughter will sometimes have half a dozen mares.

All ages and both sexes in the bush are great on horseback. You may meet a father who was a labourer in England riding to church on Sundays a distance of twenty miles, carrying the baby before him to be christened, and followed or surrounded by boys and girls from six years old and upwards, mounted on their own long-tailed colts. There is a great difference between stumbling tired along a road on foot and riding a good horse; and this is one of the differences which the frugal working man experiences in Australia.

There is something very romantic in the appearance of a troop of mares, headed by the snorting, thick-maned, master stallion, who has beaten off all competitors, as they wheel, start, gallop, and pause to stare on the brow of a hill; and many a youthful heart beats high at the idea of a gallop striding on a blood horse across the undulating plains of Australia, cheering on the hounds, pursuing the bounding forester or flying doe, or trying the best blood of the colony against an emu, that might well contend against the sons of old Eclipse, or rattling down steep rocky ranges after a troop of horses as wild as ever careered round the naked Mazeppa; but, to own the honest truth, without the pressure produced by res angusta domi—without the charms of locality incident to family ties, a wife and colonial-born children,