A DISMAL PICTURE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1165, 25 October 1883, Page 1

A DISMAL PICTURE.

The following letter—received by a jesident of Naseby, Otago, from Mr Ernest F Rogers (an erstwhile resident in this district) who iB at present on one of the numerous sheep-atationa in the back districts of ' New South Wales—draws a very doleful picture of the drawbacks to which the squatters are subjected in that part:—" We are now (August) enjoying the dry interior spring, or rather I should say, suffering from the effects of the dry weather. For hundreds of miles around the stock are dying off, as a consequence of which squatters will be very heavy losers this season. We have had quite a succession of droughts in this (the Canon bar) district. During the last three years only one heavy shower of rain has fallen, and that was last November. Since that month only a few very light showers have fallen. From this you can imagine that it is very hard for stock to thrive here. There is scarcely a blade of grass anywhere, and the cattle and sheep have to live upon the various scrubs indigeoous to certain parts of the country, such as the myall, currant bush, cotton and salt bush, etc, etc These will stand even the severest droughts. On many stations even this poor class of feed is not to be found. Shearing is now in full swing.; Many of the squatters have hud to ' travel'their stock for grass, and many who wish to do so now cannot, as they have hung on too long for the rain. 'Travelling' sheep comes pretty expensive. To ' travel' 10,000 sheep costs at the very lowest estimate £3O per weekvery often double and three times that amount. We are 400 miles west of Sydney, near the Bogan river (so-called), which only runs in a heavy flood. A flood over, the water has to be stored up in dams on the banks or in the bed of the nver. Indeed, all the streams out this way iire similar in character to the Bogan. Even the great Darling is often dry, and woolboats are frequently stuck in the mud for eighteen months or two years. The ruuholders have, therefore, to build tanks for holding water, and you can imagine the size of them when I say that ac much as 18,000 cubic yards of earth

are taken out of some of them. Very often after a long spell of dry weather, some of these excavations go dry, and then you may travel miles and miles, begging in vain for a.draught of water. I—aye, and thousands of others—have been glad to drink out of a small hole round which dead cattle were lying ; aud I have known men who were often compelled to gather up and drink a drop of the precious fluid that the hide of a dead beast may have contained As for insects, reptiles, etc, the water very often terms with snakes, adders, mosquitoes, etc, so you can imagine how nice it tastes. My mind often recurs longingly to the crystal streams of New Zealand." The inconveniences to which the New. Zealand landholder have to submit are'as nothing compared with their New. South Wales brethren. When one reads of water of the description depicted above, he can appreciate the fact that here we have, for drinking and other purposes, water in sufficiency all the year .round, and even in the very driest of seasons.