Australia's Cattle Herds

Horowhenua Chronicle, 22 February 1911, Page 4

Australia's Cattle Herds

Beef cat Lie are a big industry in Australia. The .Durham is an c'lsy first, with the Hereford next: but the Devon, the Aberdeen-Anvils;, and other breeds have many adherents. The cattle of Australia now number between 9,000,000 to 10,000.000. an increase of nearly 0.000,000 in the past fifty years. The great breeding stations are chiefly in the rich tropical northern latitudes of Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia. Here country is cheap and abundant, the rainfall is high, rivers are plentiful, the stoil is rich, awl the seed luxuriant. By and by lots of this lnlnd will nrobably go to the butter-maker, but in the meantime it is famous as a money-spinner at rattle raising. The stations are measured in hundreds of square miles, fences are few, very little labour is required, expenses are low, and at the beef values of recent years profits have been extremely good. No part of Australia has been more remunerative than Mris wide a'nd fertile north; no part of the continent offers the man who is called by lonely outside places, where he can pursue fortune in almost unbroken solitude, such a chance to realise his desire. Immense herds of the wild, shy, northern cattle are always on tlieir long road across Australia to the markets of Uli'O- south. They come down with their drovers into southern Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, where, as a rule, they are sold in small lots to pastoraJists and; farmers who fatten them for ti!;e butcheis or for export. This "overlanding" across arreat stretches of country, often relieved by very little feed and water, calls for the .hi'slliest •skill of the bushmen, and the names of some of Australia's most famous

[rovers are familiar to every school toy of that country.