Sheep station

“ Well, they have to learn to do all the work there is to do at a station, so that some day they may get to be managers or even run stations of [55] their own. They have to ride the boundary every day to see that there are not holes in the fences, and that the water holes are full. Only one man is needed to look after 7,500 sheep, so he is kept pretty busy. ”

“ An Australian sheep-station consists of two yards built of logs, brush-wood, or small saplings. Each yard must be large enough to contain fifteen hundred sheep; and there is a small hut for two men to sleep in at night. These stations are scattered over the run at distances of two or three miles from one another, and there is a head, or central, station, where the squatter or his manager lives, and whence the supplies for the men are sent out. According to the size of the run and the number of sheep upon it will the stations be multiplied. ”

“ The sun was scarcely an hour high when the wayfarers came in sight of the village-appearing group of edifices familiarly known as a 'sheep station.' The 'men's hut' came first into view—a substantial dwelling, with horizontal sawn slabs and shingled roof, a stone chimney and a dining-room. Boasting a cook, moreover, of far from ordinary rank. A superior building, in fact, to the one which the owner of the station thought good enough for himself for the first few years of his occupation of North Yalla-doora. ”

“ Most of those employed about the cattle and sheep stations do not remain there long. As soon as they become fairly useful they demand higher wages, and in a little while their demands are so exorbitant that they must be sent away.
"When they are out of work they take to stealing cattle, and generally from the station where they were formerly engaged, and with which they are familiar. Many of them loaf around the towns, doing small jobs of work, and generally dying of drink." ”

“ A 'run' is the least improved kind of land used for sheep, but the word is used almost alternatively with 'station,' which denotes an improved run. The run may be a mere sheep-walk, but a station is bound to have a house attached to it, and fenced 'paddocks' or fields. The storekeeper is the lowest official on a station. ”

“ A big sheep station nowadays is, as I have said, a large-size business proposition, requiring competent managers and overseers. On the more important stations there are bookkeepers and storekeepers. Nearly every one has its blacksmiths and carpenters, its gardeners, hostlers, garage men, and men of all work. The managers are skilled men who get high salaries, for the station’s profit depends largely upon them. ”

“ The chain of ponds, there called "the Little River," contained water in abundance, and was said to flow into the Macquarie, in which case the Bogan can have but few sources in Hervey's Range.
The station beside which we had encamped, comprised a stock yard, and had been formerly a cattle station belonging to Mr. Kite. It was now a sheep station of Dr. Ramsay's, and there was another sheep station a mile and a half from it, along the road I had examined. Thus the country suitable for either kind of stock is taken up by the gradual encroachment of sheep on cattle runs, not properly such. ”

“ For I conceive that it is a piece of very doubtful wisdom for a man who is not thoroughly acquainted with the thing himself, to leave his station in the hands of an overseer. There is no place where good or bad management tells more decidedly than on an Australian sheep station ”

“ After this incident all went well, and at about 8 o'clock we arrived at a sheep station, where many men were shearing and where no white women had ever been before. The shearers took out the horses and brought us some tea in a pannikin. ”

“ Sheep browsed beside the road, and scattered with wild leaps and bounds at the sound of the approaching motor, which stopped at the paddock gate to deliver the daily mail—often to some shy country girl sitting gracefully astride her horse waiting for the five minutes' chat which links up the lonely station with the world beyond. ”

“ All clothing made outside factories for sale is to be ticketed "tenement made," and any person removing the ticket before sale may be fined. No home work may be sublet. A peculiar feature in the Act relates to the board and lodging provided on sheep stations for the nomadic bands of shearers who traverse colonies, going from wool-shed to wool-shed during the shearing season. The huts in which these men live are placed under the factory inspectors, who have power to call upon station-owners to make them decent and comfortable. ”

“ The site for a cattle market should be selected, if practicable, near to a railway station, so as to avoid as much as possible the dangerous and objectionable practice of driving cattle and sheep through the streets, and for the same reasons it should be near the public slaughter-houses if there are any in the town. ”

“ There are many servants and the station is often more like the estate of a feudal baron than that of an ordinary farmer. Most of the sheep men are well educated, many are college-bred, and their homes show all the evidences of culture and taste. ”

“ Out of doors matters would not even be as far advanced towards a garden and plantation as they are if we had commenced operations ourselves, but the ground has been worked since last year. I am glad we have chosen to build our house here instead of at the homestead two miles off; for I like to be removed from the immediate neighbourhood of all the work of the station, especially from that of the "gallows,"—a high wooden frame from which the carcases of the butchered sheep dangle; under the present arrangement the shepherd brings us over our mutton as we want it. ”

“ The poor dear sheep, the source of our income, were after all the least well-cared for creatures on the Station. A well grassed and watered run, with sunny vallies for winter feeding, and green hills for summer pasturage, had been provided by antipodean Nature for them, and to these advantages we only added some twenty or twenty-five miles of wire fencing, and then they were left to themselves, with a couple of shepherds to look after fifteen thousand sheep all the year round. ”

“ Nothing but a rough and summary mode of proceeding would be effectual with such people, whose conduct might destroy the comfort of all decent classes of passengers. They were probably ci-devant convicts, or, as they are here termed, “old lags.” At this station, we heard that 7,500 store [15] sheep had been brought over from Bathurst (500 miles) , for the convenience of shearing, and afterwards transshipping the wool clip to Adelaide. ”

“ The kitchen was near, and we were just in time to see an enormous batch of bread withdrawn from a huge brick oven: the other commissariat arrangements were on the same scale. Cold tea is supplied all day long to the shearers, and they appear to consume great quantities of it.
Our last visit was to the Dip, and it was only a short one, for it seemed a cruel process; unfortunately, this fine station is in technical parlance "scabby," and although of course great precautions are taken, still some 10,000 sheep had an ominous large S on them. ”

“ Though always suspicious of each other, this clan and the Europeans maintained the pleasantest relations during the three months of their stay at the peninsula.
During that time the commander of the station secured in barter more than two hundred head of cattle and nearly six hundred sheep.
At the end of the first year, the station was well [Pg 186] established and prosperous. A garden had been planted, a system of irrigation introduced sufficiently great to water the whole extent of cultivated ground, some acres in all. ”

“ The station-blacks, living on the sheep and cattle stations and helping the squatters on their "runs." They are fed and clothed in return for their work, and are given a new blanket every year. The men and boys ride about the run looking after the sheep, bring them in at shearing time and help with the shearing. The women and girls learn to do housework and make themselves useful in many ways. ”

“ Stock-yards and cattle-pens had then to be formed, the latter close to the river, where the sheep, before shearing, could be washed, a very important process.
The station being a large one, the gentlemen were often on horseback from morning until night, going round to the different runs. The huts were put up in various directions for the accommodation of the stockmen and shepherds; in some instances in imitation of Castle Hill, or with small gardens near them, very unusual, it must be owned, in that part of Australia. ”

“ Such a carrier makes his living by transporting wool from stations in the far west to the coast, and also by bringing back supplies. Thus he spends his life on the road from one year’s end to another. He is himself the owner of both oxen and waggon. If he has several of such teams and also a wife, she usually drives one, plying her whip as dexterously as any man.
Finally we meet the great flocks of sheep from Minnie Downs, proof that we are now near this station, our goal. The month I spent here gave me an excellent knowledge of station life. ”

“ He is generally butcher and baker to the whole station. At a short distance off is the wool-shed, the most important and imposing building of all, where the sheep are shorn and the wool packed. And there are a few outlying shepherd’s huts, each with its hut-keeper (unless the shepherd is married) , whose only business is to cook and keep house for the shepherd, and occasionally lend a hand with the sheep pens. They all get good wages. The shepherds get from 40l. ”

“ The shepherd in his hut in the lambing season, when the east wind blows and he needs shelter, is sure to have a scrap of newspaper with him to pore over in the hollow of the windy downs. In summer he reads in the shade of the firs while his sheep graze on the slope beneath. The little country stations are often not stations at all in the urban idea of such a convenience, being quite distant from any town, and merely gathering together the traffic from cross-roads. ”

“ Every place was covered with dog daisies; river-banks, roadside, everywhere an advancing army crept over the hills. Sleek cows stood and lay about waiting for the milking. Among the station hacks a fine stag was grazing, who dashed into the river and disappeared over the hills, disturbed by our approach; a white horse whinnied at us and one or two dogs barked enquiringly, but otherwise the station was silent, wrapped in sleep. The shearers’ camp, a long row of white tents, seemed to have been newly pitched, the flaps up for coolness sake—let us see the men and packs lying about inside. ”

“ The establishment of a cattle station in the neighborhood is of great advantage to the settlement, serving as an outpost to secure its safety, and in opening up the country, besides affording a ready supply of fresh meat. Already my sons and their blacks have cut good passages through the scrub to the settlement, and also through the various belts of scrub dividing their station from open grounds ”

“ The stations are short, being rarely above five or six miles, and one is therefore constantly changing horses. Arrived at a station, it either happens that there is really no horse to be had, or that this is an ostensible excuse. ”

“ And the large white granite station, with iron and glass roof, more resembles an aviary than a railway terminus, the sparrows assembling there in multitudes on the tie-rods, and chattering in almost deafening fashion. In those very considerable intervals between the coming and going of trains one may stand on the platform and not be able to hold a conversation, owing to the sparrows. ”

“ The men rode straight through that bleating, panic-stricken mass, on the edge of which two hysterical collies vainly tried to exert control of their charges. The cattlemen were looking for the shepherd.
Some distance beyond the flock, or where the flock had been, for the sheep were now rushing across the plain, was a two-horse, canvas-topped wagon, with a stove-pipe protruding through the top at the back. For your sheepherder does not sleep on the ground like the cowboy, but prefers a sheltering wagon. When the men reached this shelter, there was no one in sight. ”

“ Near an end of the siding, with a few feet of rails spanning the distance between, stood a little structure not unlike an overgrown kennel, where the hand-car for the men and the section tools were housed. For a space about the station and the boss’s shanty and on either side the railway and the road it was clear, then began the inevitable corn that stood full-grown on the prairie as far as the eye could see. ”

“ We hurry in single files from opposite ends of rouseabouts' and shearers' huts (as the paths happen to run to the shed) gulping hot tea or coffee from a pint-pot in one hand and biting at a junk of brownie in the other.
“Shed of forty hands. Shearers rush the pens and yank out sheep and throw them like demons; grip them with their knees, take up machines, jerk the strings; and with a rattling whirring roar the great machine-shed starts for the day.
“'Go it, you——tigers!' yells a tar-boy. 'Wool away!' 'Tar!' 'Sheep Ho!' We rush through with a whirring roar till breakfast time. ”

“ Their way of crossing the before-mentioned open space is entirely different. The sheep whose dye is ingrain and to the roots of its wool leaves the prison with pretty much the same air as a visitor from the country quits the train, and with easy confidence casts about him on the platform for those kind friends who he knows will be there to greet him and convey him straight to the refreshment room. ”