The Wool Industry of New Zealand. (ILLUSTRATIONS BY COURTESY OF NEW ZEALAND DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE)

Progress, Volume II, Issue 6, 1 April 1907, Page 213

The Wool Industry of New Zealand. (ILLUSTRATIONS BY COURTESY OF NEW ZEALAND DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE )

There was a time when they used to say in Ireland that it was the pig that paid the rent. In this colony that never was a saying because the pig never loomed large in the statistics. But if anyone is in search of the animal that does pay the rent of New Zealand he will find him in the first column of statistics he comes across. That column will tell him that the exports of the colony last September were seventeen and a half millions, and that of that large aggregate, the one item wool contributed no less than £6,650,193 while the export of frozen mutton aggregated some £2,000,000; sheepskins found a modest £680,000 and the unprecedented siusage skin swelled the catalogue by a steady £55,000 bringing the aggregate contribution of the sheep industry up to necily ten millions, The sheep then contributes considerably li' Ore than half the export of the colony ; th i 's is of course a good year but we must take things as 1 nd them. Th? wool of the flocks bulks up to 150,765,2321b5. It 's the quantity shorn off the backs of the twenty million sheep returned in the Government r.cccunt. These roam the great mountains of the South and the North, they wander over the plains of the two Islands, they fatten in the rich pastures and they evade disease in recently drained swamps they spring up as if by magic as soon as the forest has been cut down in all its glory. By the way this upspringing of sheep on the ashes of the forest is one of the most remarkable things about the sheep industry. The settler secures a section in the usual way at the public ballotting ; he repairs thither.

sets up his tent, and takes out his axe and puts on as many other axemen as he wants to enable him to do the possible in the way of clearing. They chop for a while • when the

timber is down they burn the same, and, the burn over, they sow grass seed over the ashes. Of course much depends upon many circumstances. These are the nature of the season, wet or dry, the condition of the bush, fit for the fire or otherwise ; and, above all, the time of the year. But after every allowance for these things the average time between axe and grasses set down in the official guide at

between twelve and eighteen months. That is the period between the first cut of the falling axe, and the readiness of the grass on the site of the departed forest to take stock. The above is the period in the Auckland district. In the Hawkes Bay country the period is sometimes as short as ten months, in Marlborough it comes down to nine occasionally, but the general average to be reckoned on is accepted as twelve to fifteen months. Of course the sheep depastured on the new grass under these circumstances do not clip at their first shearing with all the advantages of a first class clip ; naturally the wool is stained black and the fleeces are torn,

besides being full of twigs and burrs. Still a beginning has to be made and the land is carrying sheep after the clearance of the timber. The people who carry on the wool industry under these circumstances are the pioneer settlers who live laborious days and do without the luxuries of civilisation. In the beginning it was not so. The pioneer of the early days in the South Island came to a land marked, quoted and signed for the carrying of sheep. That was not the original object of the pioneer settler. He was an expectant agriculturist who had selected a section in the country near some country town, like his section in the paper map stage, and on arrival his eyes were opened by the wilderness all around him. Then the tales of the prosperity of the squatters of the Australian Continent reached h's cars, and very soon he saw representatives of that enterprising class of men riding round h s boundaries and disappearing into the unknown behind the stacks of mountains wlrch constitute the southern interior. One can hardly blame the ignorance of the early settlers in the face of the well-known fact that science was singularly at fault in the matter. It is on record that Darwin declared the Australian Continent to be so totally unsuited to the feeding

of sheep, that sheep would never be found in numbers there, to which the sheep replied by planting himself in the country to the extent of over a hundred millions. In New Zealand the country was not banned in a similar fashion, but the first settlers left the shores of their native country without the faintest idea that they might add to their profits extensively some day through the expansive business of runholding. However, the Australians who heard of the settlement and of the nature of the country very soon swarmed over the land and placed a premium on the sheep country. Before many months the east and north of the South Island was entirely parcelled out among runholders. The run life which is to be seen to the present day, in spite of the vicissitudes of the business after sixty years, in various parts of both Islands is a pleasant breezy life, and at the present time when wool is wool, as the saying is, very profitable. The time has passed when it was the general belief that it can never pay to deal with sheep except in

if the run is managed on up-to-date lines, for having the ewes all together for the purpose of culling, in order to keep the breeding standard up to a high level, and at all these musters, regular and irregular, the neighbours attend after due notification to look after all possible wanderers from their flocks. Taking the year's operations, commencing with the fall of the first snow of the winter, let us consider the working. It is about the beginning of April, the sheep are all up on the high lands, and the first fall never very severe has caught them. They are in the big basins of the mountain, the snow is too deep to permit them to crop the tussock, long as it is in those upper regions ; nothing but a narrow strip of snow separates them from the lower spurs and the thick grass with which they are covered. But they seem incapable of the effort required to force their way through : it is evident that if left to themselves they will stay where they are until the snow melts. Now, as the snow may not melt till the end of the coming winter, the consequences may be very serious. All hands are called and an

the enormous numbers that are the great feature of the run system, and as the result the small farmer makes sheep feeding or growing a profitable speciality. Nevertheless the sheep farming on a large scale presents the largest and most easily observable of all the systems of wool growing in the colony. The year's history is of the simplest. The sheep are out in their mountain the whole time, with the exception of the shearing season when they are mustered and brought in to the wool shed where their fleeces are taken off by shearers at the rate of about 100 per man per day. There are other musters on every run ; the ewes which are run separate from the wethers requiring to be brought in when the lambing is done, and the lambs are strong enough to be tailed and counted; and the same require again to be brought in this time late in the summer, so that their lambs may be weaned and taken to their own pastures. In the present day, moreover, when mutton is mutton just as much as wool is wool, there must be musters for getting at the sheep for export, (also the fat lambs) and the store wethers, for sale and,

expedition starts for the tops, spending a few days of strenuous effort. The sheep may not be in the first basins, and the party has to trudge on through the snow at great labour. Sometimes there is danger also. For instance the snow may take it into its head to slide. The party is at the moment crossing the face of a basin, the snow breaks up all round them and carries them down towards the lower ground at a pace more exhilarating than comfortable. During the descent you may get uncomfortably squeezed and for a moment, all too long, you are under the dismal belief that you have been flattened out. There is at the same time the uncertainty of the fortune in front. You are being carried along to be simply deposited on the broader smoother face below, or is it to be your fate to be hurled over a precipice and squashed by the blocks of tons weight going with you to the bitter end ? It is an awkward question, and the time for thinking out the possible answer is not propitious, for you are rolled over and over, big blocks of snow passing over you with majestic disregard for your feelings. The shouts of your comrades to look out for a rock and the querulous

yelping of the dogs make a dismal concert. Suddenly a rock looms up in front close by. You grasp it firmly, the snow rolls away and you are safe and panting and shouting out wrinkles to your friends, who present the appearance of dark headed swimmers struggling m the surf of the ocean as they are borne on by the sliding snow, protesting. At last the party is safe by one method of escape or another ; in some instances men are helped by their mates at the right moment, and the occasion is honoured with a smoke after which the party plods along as before, until it gets to sheep. Here the method is simple : — there are perhaps 5,000 sheep waiting for release : you take a dozen ; the whole party attacks them shouting, all the dogs bark as if the seven sleepers were there to be waked, everything is done to make the small lot force their way through the snow. In due course they get through some ten yards, and they are completely exhausted. You take another squad and repeat the process, and so on, until there is a fairly long pathway trodden between two high walls of snow. At this juncture the imprisoned 5,000 have got the hang of things, and before you can realise it they have rushed into the new made path. Then you get fresh storming parties so to speak, and as the path is trodden longer and longer by this torce major, the mild flock keeps coming gently and joyfully on, until at last the way is clear, and the 5,000 are at breakfast spread out among the tussocks of the lower spurs. The party goes quietly on to the next basin; and that is their work day after day until all the basins are clear. Sometimes it is necessary to divide the hands, in which case the usual rule is that never there shall be less than two in a party. There is one thing about this work : it is safe to take it for granted that the sheep, once free, will not go back into the higher basins, so that when the heavy falls of snow come later on it is not necessary to repeat the search of the basins. It is of great importance to get all this done in time, because even if the sheep are not lost, long delays mean prolonged starvation, and prolonged starvation means a break in the wool which brings down the price fatally. Sometimes there is a bad year. The snow comes in abnormal quantities after the first fall, and covers the lower country which the flockmaster usually counts on as certain to be free : it is his winter country, a proportion of which must go with every run. The provision of this proportion is the great difficulty of the subdivision rendered imperative by the demands of an increasing population of settlers. When these abnormal falls come there is a tremendous loss. Twice the Minister of L,ands has had to call upon Parliament to sanction remissions of the pastoral rents. These losses have on large stations totalled on these occasions, up to very high f gures ; in one case there was recorded a loss of 50,000 as may be seen in the reports of the proceedings of the Land Commission. It is a grave question whether some concessions are not necessary whereby the. pastoral tenants may be encouraged to grow feed in mild seasons to keep the sheep alive in the exceptional visitations. Also there is an agitation for preventing overstocking, a question 1 complicated by the prevalence of the rabbit in many quarters. There is among some observers an impression that it is the cold (which is intense enough to kill certain varieties of timber which have lasted through many winter seasons in the uplands) not the want of feed which kills the sheep at these times. AH of which circumstances make the problem of dealing with the worst winters in these southern regions most

complicated. It is still further complicated by the idea that it would be possible to grow grass on these runs, of some variety better fitted to stand the cold weather. It is a question of alteration in the terms of the leases. These hill sheep are for the most part of the merino breed, such being lighter built, fond of travel, at home in the hill and fond of climbing, so much so that when disturbed they invariably make upwards. The choicer wool of this variety is good combing wool, and if the hill happens to be occupied with a cross-bred flock (long wool and merino) the harvest of "combing" is looked forward to with considerable interest. Hence the dread of the " break " which effectually relegates the best combing to the lower grades. All the quotations are of " Bradford Tops " the tops being the long staple left after the worst has been discarded by the machines. With the dreaded break no hope of being mentioned in " Tops." The most important time on every sheep station is of course the shearing time. It varies, according to the locality, from November to January. The requisites are a woolshed and shearing paddocks in which the sheep are kept after they are brought in by the musterers. In some places there is a sheep-wash also, but nowadays the practice is to shear in .the grease. Some years ago it used to be the fashion to wash sheep in hot water with soap and soda, finishing them off in cold water administered as a douche. The process used to be very effective but was discontinued as not profitable, the buyers preferring to treat their wool for themselves. The woolshed is a large building consisting of three parts — the shearing floor, the sheep pens, and the packing and press room. The floor, which is boarded, has room for from ten to forty shearers according to the size of the flock to be shorn. The sheep pens are of two kinds, the small pens of a capacity of ten to a dozen sheep immediatelly behind each shearers place, and a number of large ones capable of holding a whole day's shearing in rainy weather ; and between the large storing pens and the small shearing pens there are races ingeniously fashioned for letting the woolly sheep into the latter, and the shorn ones into the pens outside, where they are counted at the end of each sp^ll by the shed manager. At the sorting table there is a sorter who classes the fleeces, trimming them extensively, and after he has done with them the fleeces are carried to the pressers, who fill the bales as fast as they can and press them by repeated turns of the screw. The wool press stands near the sorting table in the packing room. Work begins usually at five a.m. to the click of the shears ; the fleeces are taken off deftly by the practised hands who can easily do their hundred a day, and carried to the sorting table. The muster of the flocks for the shearing is the most important of ttie year. Tte Hill to be mustered consists of, say, a

main ridge throwing great ribs out on each side down to the flat below, with vast basins between them in which the sheep feed during the day. The simplest form of muster is to place a line of men on each side of the ridge and march them along without break in their line to the end of the ridge, a party of men in each of the valleys receiving the sheep as they rush down off the htfll. If the hill is long, the muster will be an affair of days, in which case the line camps at night-fall in three divisions, one of which is at the top of the hill, the other two being in the two valleys below. They throw out patrols to prevent the sheep from ' ' breaking back ' ' But the best patrol is the early start sometimes at one in the morning, if the night is bright, for the night is the only time during the hot weather when the sheep will travel. By day the line of the muster is kept by setting fire to the big tussocks of the " snow grass " which burn with a tall column of smoke. At the end of the muster the sheep converge to the end of the mountain which looks like a series of ridges of

moving wool. Arrived at the woolshed, the sheep are dispsered about the shearing paddocks and the shed is filled for the first day's shearing ; and that is the routine from day to day till the shearing is done. This mustering is, at best a rough process, a large number of sheep escaping every time in spite of the vigilance of men and dogs which is ceaseless, but during the night for the most part ineffectual. The most experienced flock masters are pleased when their shortage does not exceed ten per cent of the aggregate of their flock. As there are several musters during the shearing the shortage is gradually reduced until but a few woolly sheep are left out. Life on these stations is pleasant. L Neighbours are constantly dropping in to find large hospitality, and there are meetings of all kinds to while away the time. Our illustration shows the station homestead of Sir John Hall on the Hororata river in middle Canterbury, Observe the well grown hedges, the tall, thick leaved trees, the buildings substantial and prosperous, all denoting both age and

wealth. Some old world homestead one is tempted to say at the first blush. Never were appearances more deceptive. The place is not above forty years old, and all that elaborate detail and substantial growth was in the 'beginning, simply the tussock plain unrelieved a single tree or a solitary building ; it has all been planted and laid out by the enterprising owner. At first the tenure w&s the leasehold of the pastoral run. Some of it is still of that holding, but the greater part, and the best part, is freehold acquired under the land laws of the past. In the distance the hill rises behind the homestead, and upon that hill are run the flocks during the summer months, the plains surrounding the homestead doing duty as winter country for the best part, a remnant running on the lower slopes and the more sunny fgyces of the mountain. The place is typical : there are many of the same stamp through New Zealand, mostly situated on* freehold property, and in every district there are some magnificent homesteads where country life is up to the ideal standard. Other places are of 4; different stamp, smaller. ..more under, the Jonmediate

ing stores to take advantage of a plethora of grass, or getting rid of them for the reverse reason ; between dipping, watching for diseases from foot rot upwards, a contingency to which the farmer is very much more liable than his friend of the pastoral run, growing the incidental turnips and the rest, the business of sheep farming is a thing very different from what it was in the pioneer days when fortunes were made by the " Jumbuk " almost in the twinkling of an eye, and a good run was better than a gold mine any day of the week. Then there is the care for the breeding. When Merino was the sole breed in the country, and a very paying breed at that, and the mountain pasture was practically the only pasture in use, the question of the breed of your sheep was comparatively limited. There were many varieties of the Merino from the large Rambouillet to the small Negretti, and rams from Germany and France, America and Tasmania and Australia were the subject of endless and most interesting discussion among the flockmasters. They are so now for that matter, but not to the same extent. The floekmaster now has to grow for mutton as

management of the owners who do all their own work without the aid of a manager, riding round their paddocks, judging the • bbndition and prospects of their stock and arranging all the various operations of mixed farming/which has on all the farming properties great and small taken the place of the ancient simplicity of the tussock farming. Artificial food is grown on every farm, turnips rape, oaten hay, mangolds ; and the sheep is no longer the sole interest but has to divide the position with the rest, having become a link only in the chain of mixed farming. With the rew system has grown up an easier method of hailing sheep, with more certain results y %P\ musters. The stock are in paddocks eS|isonvenieitt size wire fenced. Even the mountain pastures are in most cases divided by the übiquitous "iron long drawn out, the l&mbings are better, and a larger proportion of the increase is saved every year. On the* other hand mere is more labour in the business^ and more "risk, except in the matter of the snow storms which do not bother the farmer ate they do the run-holder. Between reguldtlrCg thfe Increase and securing the same, fattening the lambs in special paddocks, buy-

well as for wool, and the supremacy of the Merino is gone, for the Merino is a small sheep. Very toothsome he is truly, and when grown on certain hills where there is still a survival of the aromatic herbage of old, which used to flavour the mutton of the Shepherd Kings who were fond of pronouncing the same superior to the best Welsh and finer than the primest Southdown, he will hold his own with the true connoisseur. But markets have their fashions and their prejudices. It is out of the question to try and make converts for theories. The wise man takes the market as he finds it, making up his mind to supply its demands, as they are. leaving the question of working them up to what they might be to other people who have more money to lose and more experience to acquire. Moreover, the Merino is a slow maturing sheep, not being at his prime till he reaches the age of four, whereas the I^ongwools are mostly to be depended on for maturity within two years. It did not matter much so long as wool was the only object of the sheep farmer, but when mutton became a sine qua non the element of early maturity became decisive, and as the element of large carcase was on

the side of the Longwools, they prevailed as a natural sequence. Moreover there is much land in New Zealand for which the Merino is quite unfit, on which he perishes of foot rot, lung disease, and everything the ovine constitution abhors. For the farmer of the agricultural type the Merino sheep is an impossibility frequently. Thus it came about that the Merino flocks of the colony gradually lost their premier position so far as the numbers are concerned. The position in April 1905, the date of the last figures on the subject published by the Department of Agriculture, is as follows :—: — the total number of sheep returned in the colony on that date was 19,100,000 (it has since risen to 20,931,000). Of these there were Merinos 2,238,824, and of all other sorts 16,852,800. Therefore, when the cable sends out the prices reached at the public sales the interest in Longwools felt in the colony is as sixteen to every two of Merino. How this affects the future may be seen from the figures showing the proportions of the stud flocks maintained for every denomination of the sheep family. Merino stud sheep are some 12,000, and the others are, Lincolns, 98,900, Rom--i ney Marsh 141,000, Southdown -] 15,500, Miscellaneous 46,700. Thus 1 we have over 600,000 Longwools ! in the stud department against 12,000 Merinos. The Merino stud flocks are only two per cent of the Longwool stud flocks, while the Merino ordinary flecks are 16.28 per cent, of the ordinary Longwool flocks of the colony. Evidently the Merino .'s destined to dwindle rapidly while the increase cf the years to come must go on upon the lines of Longwool. The Merino, however, must always be with us for the simple reason that in the crossbreeding you cannot do without the Merino. The creature is needed for the quality of the crossbred wool, and it is the most valuable strain for that purpose. It may not be so when a settled type of crossbred sheep is reached. Some years ago it was thought by certain experts that such a type had been evolved and had coir.c to stay. The new breed was known as the " Corriedale." Speaking in 1899, Mr. Murphy, the well-known authority, said guardedly of the type, " Some breeders claim th.it the new breed " Corriedale," is a class of sheep that embraces the desired qualities, and possesses a fixity of type. The generally accepted meaning of the Corriedale is a sheep resulting from the fourth cross of half-bred Lincoln Merino and the rams Lincoln. The progeny of these is half bred. These in turn are bred, half-breds to halfbreds, for four generations, and a Corriedale is the result It was Mr. James Little, of Annandale, Waikari, Canterbury, who gave sheep bred on these lines the distinctive name of " Corriedale " from the estate of that name in the Oamaru back country." The problem it was thought, in spite of the guarded reference of the above authority, had been solved by the man from Annandale. But the lapse of years did not confirm the sanguine estimate. Mr. Murphy, writing in the year 1905 in the Official Year Book of that year, said " The most profitable sheep for New Zealand is that which combines the best fleece and the most suitable carcase for freezing purposes together with early maturity. This is the class of sheep which some breeders have set themselves to produce. Whether such an

animal, having fixity of type, can be evolved remains to be proved ; so much depends upon feed, situation, and soil. It is very clear that the best authority does not believe that the desired type has been evolved yet. Breeders are coming round to the opinion that, as in England and Scotland, the types of sheep bred will differ with the districts they are bred in. In other words, they have realised Mr. Murphy's cautious aphorism that " so much depends on feed, situation and soil." To start on a discussion as to what the best sheep is to breed from, would, under these circumstances be to embark on a voyage without hope of an end. It is enough to say that the favourite crosses are with the Shropshire and the Leicester, while the Lincoln has his admirers, and were it not for the fact that his wool is undesirable the Southdown would by reason of the excellent quality of his mutton, take the palm easily. In addition it may be advisable to say that a sheep, the Roscommon, has been recently imported from Ireland, of which it is claimed that while growing an enormous carcase of excellent, tender mutton, he clips a huge fleece of very fair quality. If anyone wants to see a sharp criticism of this animal laid on with a flail, intended for the back of the whole bench of ministers, let him read the remarks recorded to the credit of the Leader of the Opposition in the columns of that voluminous publication, Hansard. If he likes the flagellation of his neighbour he will be edified much. If, on the other hand, he wants to learn something in favour of the Roscommon sheep, with references to his suitability to the New Zealand climate and soil, he will conclude that the government of the day came early to the conclusion that the columns of Hansard were not created for the purpose of discussing the merits of rival stud sheep, even of those the passages of which to these shores have been paid by the government of the country out of the moneys of the bleeding taxpayer. The last scene in the career of a fleece oi wool grown for t le market is in the saleroom. Nowadays, a certain proportion of wool is sold in the local market, but the bulk of the clips of the colony is generally sold in London; consequently, the main interest of the grower centres in the latter place. The scene there when the usual catalogue of many thousand bales is offered is of a nature astonishing to every colonist who sees it for the first time. It is led up to by the same preliminaries to which he is accustomed in his own country, for 3 T our wool grdwer is a constant attendant at the wool sales wheiaever in town from his farm. These are the 1 display of wool bales all open with parts of the fleeces hanging out for the inspection of the experts. First let us digress to talk of Bradford Tops, the term so mystifying in the reports of prices from " our special correspondent in the wool market." These are the wool as it comes ready for spinning, soft, white, clean, and silky. It is a wonder to the eye and a revelation to the touch of the man accustomed to handle greasy wool and boast that he is not ashamed, thank Heaven, to dirty his hands when he is earning bread, not he. The stuff is wound up in balls, and to these balls a number is attached which number has the attention of the expert buyer every time. These are from say "32 " to " 62 " as a rule in the markets that most do concern our people. They are the crux of the whole business, for they denote the number of hanks that go, of their particular ball to make up one pound weight. The fewer the hanks, the coarser the wool, that is the simple rule. It is the business of the expert to know almost at the first glance he throws into a bale of

wool, how many hanks of the contents will be required to make a pound of "Tops." Having arrived at the conclusion, he marks the result in his book and repairs to the auction room where proceedings are about to begin. In the auction room a gentleman faultlessly groomed, looking the pink of commercial respectability, with the splendour of a hothouse flower in his buttonhole, stands on a raised platform quietly facing rows of quietly dressed gentlemen sitting calmly on circular tiers of benches rising one behind the other in the attitude of mild expectation one sees in a congregation before the sermon. There is not a bale of wool in sight and nothing in the place to suggest that there is a sale of wool going on. You think you may conclude that you have wandered into a prayer meeting. You are feeling in your pocket for a threepenny bit, when the man on the raised platform suddenly says a word, pronounces it softly, apparently not meaning to hurt the feelings of any one. The result is, however, just as if he had put a match to a powder barrel. All that quiet, inoffensive, mildly expectant congregation are on their feet raised apparently by some explosion, and all yelling some word, (probably opprobrious you conclude), and emphasising the same by pointing luridly at the man in the centre, your alleged parson in fact, who has roused their ire. For a few seconds this yelling goes on during which the man in the centre looks at the raving maniacs in front of him with a sort of calm pity. Presently he pronounces the name of one of the madmen and all at once the tumult ceases ; you see the assembly once more peaceful, once more mildly expectant, and you hear the occasional " frou trou " of the leaves of notebooks. Undeterred by the narrow escape of disaster at the hands of Bedlam let loose the man in the centre, pronounces another word and away the gang starts off once more with its wild antics. By degrees you realise that this is the manner they have of selling wool by auction, and you wonder, with a wonder you will never get over, how that auctioneer with the flower of a successful blameless life business in his uncreased button hole manages to pick out the right bidder and knock down the right lot to him. But there is no doubt about it, for those buyers, keen all to the point of Bedlam, acquiesce at once, and the clerks at the little tables record the same without hesitation. Time, some one tells you with a trace of pity for your unsophisticated wits, is the essence of his contract. And you can well believe him. Where all yell the same figure, repeating for the bare life in stentorian tones as scores do. for they have all made up their minds what the wool is worth, how many hanks it will go to the pound how much weight it will lose when the grease is out of it, what burrs there may be, and all the other matters of the expert calculation in these cases made and provided, when they have yelled their repetition till they are hoaise, the ear easily picks out any different noise such as a halfpenny rise or a farthing or eighth as the case may be, according to the announcement at the beginning" of the sale, and to hear is to declare at once. In this way is done the business, the record of which the grower, when he gets his account sales, gloats over with a care that alnios' spells all the words. In bad times of w v>l those account sales have often been a post on the road to the bankruptcy court, and always led to the operation of " cashing up " so much disliked by the man who has taken an advance and thanked Heaven that that was settled once and for all. In these times of " boom "

the reverse is the case, and the grower has the pleasure of finding a cheque attached to the account according to the measure of the excess of the price over the advance. But the accounts are spelled out in the same leisurely fashion. " Can we afford a trip to Europe ?" or ' Shall we haye 1 to dismiss the gardener ?" These questions mark the limits of the speculations produced by the receipt of the account sales of the season. Such is life on the pastoral fields of this wool producing colony.