GOATS AS PIONEERS

Hokitika Guardian, 8 March 1928, Page 1

GOATS AS PIONEERS

SETTLEAI EXT Op ,ALSa R A LI A. BYDXEy, Fob. 23. As the goat is to out-back Queensland what the cow is to the outlying places of other parts ot Australia, one man. describing himself as a farmer, of St. Lawrence, in tlie northern State, apparently felt himself called upon to offer a serious defence of the former animal, amid all the satire that was provoked by the recent war in Sydney between the law and those staking the recent goat races. Behind the farmer’s story, tola in tbd open columns of ono of the Sydn’fey papers, is a little out-hack dram; Which may hot be uninteresting R

; New Zealanders. It goes back to the I pioneering days. Of a family of ten. jit took five, 'front nine to nineteen j years of age, to earn 32s (kl a week, j Water, carted four miles, cost 'ls: 6d a cask. Goats, bought for Is a head, : saved the situation. They provided milk and meat, after a bark house had been erected with the aid of blacks. Water was drawn four miles I by five goats harnessed to a cart conI sisting of a soap-box oil wheels, ami j loaded with kerosene tins. The goats also had to bring in the firewood, j Each year, the mothers and children 1 of the district were given a picnic. J There were as many as 14 in sonic I of these sturdy pioneering families. |6O years ago. The boys rode their 1 goats to the picnic; the others went l in luillock drays. Very few of the ’ children had either boots or money.

•'There were no banks, doctors, chemists,) lawyers, dentists, or bakers. and no false teeth, in the district of 10.000 square .miles, r ’ the farmer adds. “If a man found there was no work, lie waltzed away with ‘Atatilda.' ” , It is the dramatic little story, in short, of goats which helped'*to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and to fashion out of country that was dirt cheap big districts that are today the backbone of Queensland. The pity is that the farmer’s story did not get the same prominence as ■the facetious stories surrounding , Queensland’s goats as a medium purej ly of sport.