The Land of the Kangaroo Part 20

"It is our most active time," was the reply; "the busiest of all the year. Ordinarily the life on a sheep run is quiet and humdrum, but when shearing time begins everything is lively. We engage the shearers as they come along, in parties or gangs. They are a difficult lot of men to deal with, as they have a very powerful trade union which stands by its members, with little regard to right or wrong. The shearing is done by piece work. We used to pay three pence for shearing a sheep, or rather we paid five shillings a score. A good shearer can do fourscore in a day, and consequently he earns twenty shillings or one sovereign. That's pretty good pay, isn't it?"

"Seems to me that it is," replied Harry. "Do you board the shearers, or do they find themselves?"

"Oh, we have to board them, of course, and we have to board their horses, as most of the shearers travel on horseback. But the feed of a horse isn't of much consequence, as we simply turn him into the paddock and let him graze there. Sometimes we hire a fiddler to play for the men while they are at work in the shearing house, and also in the evening, when they are off duty. Sometimes a gang of shearers brings along its own cook. They pay the cook's wages themselves, but the employer supplies the material out of which the shearers' meals are made. These fellows are very particular as to their treatment, and if they feel that they are ill-used in any way, they are liable to quit work and go away."

"They ought to earn a very nice little sum of money during the shearing season," observed Harry.

"They certainly do," was the reply; "especially as, for the last two years, they have demanded four pence and even five pence for each sheep sheared. I expect they'll get it up in time so as to take most of the profits of the business. It makes little difference to the great majority of them how much they get for their work, as it is generally gone by the end of the shearing season."

"That reminds me," said Mr. Johnson, "of the visit of a gentleman from Melbourne to a sheep station up country. He went there with a friend, reaching the station about dinner time. He was introduced to the owner of the station, who greeted him cordially enough, and invited the two of them to remain at dinner, which would be ready shortly. He strolled about the buildings for a little while, and when dinner was announced, he went in and joined the others at table.

"The table was well supplied, and he had no occasion to complain of the quality or quant.i.ty of the food set before him; but he was somewhat surprised to find that no one spoke to him, except in the briefest manner, and that every one seemed desirous of being rid of him as soon as possible. In fact, there was very little conversation at the table, anyway, and as soon as they were through dinner he suggested to his friend that they had better be moving. Their team was brought out, and they continued their journey, their temporary hosts not even taking the trouble to say good-day to him.

"When they were out of earshot of the place, the Melbourne gentleman remarked to his companion, who, by the way, was a good deal of a practical joker:--

"'I don't think much of your friends from a civility point of view. They were as rude to me as a party of savages could be.'

"'I don't wonder at it,' was the reply. 'Just for the fun of the thing, I told them you were president of the Sheep Shearers' Union.'

"'If you told them that outrageous lie,' said the other, 'I am not at all surprised that they treated me as they did, but please don't do it again.'

"I don't believe that the president of the Shearers' Union would receive a hearty welcome at any sheep run in Australia. Sheep farmers have good reason for a serious grudge against the whole concern; but, after all, it is no worse than most of the other trade unions. Nearly all of them are oppressive to a high degree, and are a great injury to business and commercial prosperity."

Ned and Harry were especially interested in the place where the shearing was done. The building was a large structure of quadrangular shape, with a bulkhead running across the middle of it and dividing it into two portions. There is a platform for the shearers around one of the enclosures formed, and by the bulkhead at shearing time; this is always kept full of sheep; in fact, it is crowded full, so that the shearer can lay hands on a sheep at any time without the necessity of running after it. The shearers stand at their work. They have tried various devices for sitting down or for placing sheep on a bench or table so as to avoid bending their backs, but none of the experiments have succeeded, and the old process remains in use. It is decidedly fatiguing for a beginner, but in course of time one gets used to it, as to everything else.

"What is that little door for, and the little yard outside of it?"

queried Ned, as he pointed to one of a series of low, small doors at the outside of the shearers' platform, opposite the enclosure.

"Oh, that is for the shearer to let out his sheep after he has removed the fleece. He takes the animal to be sheared out of the enclosure, as I told you, and then when he has sheared it, he lets it out through this door into the little yard; that is to enable us to count the men's work in a way to avoid all disputes. In the early days of Australian sheep farming, the men who gathered up the fleece kept the accounts of the shearers, but there were constant disputes on the subject, which led to the adoption of the present system. You see there isn't any chance for misunderstanding now."

"Certainly, you have it now beyond question," remarked Harry; "and I am sure that every shearer is very careful about letting his sheep out through his own door."

"That he is," was the reply; "and we never have any complaints about unfair counting. At the end of the day's work everybody can count up for himself."

"I suppose," said Ned, "that the shearers occasionally cut the sheep while shearing them."

"Occasionally!" was the reply; "you had better say frequently, or very often; and some of them are much worse than others. We have proposed to the Shearers' Union to establish a system of fines for 'tomahawking'

sheep, but the union refuses to do anything about it. We always have a boy here, and sometimes two boys, while the shearing is going on. The boy is provided with a tar bucket and brush. Whenever a shearer cuts the skin of a sheep he calls out 'Tar!' not stopping a moment in his work.

At the sound of that word, the boy runs forward with his bucket and brush and covers the wounded spot with tar, which keeps the flies away from it. Tar is the best thing we can find for this purpose, and is in use on all the sheep runs in the country.

"Many of the shearers," continued their host, "pride themselves on the skill with which they perform their work. The shearer places the sheep between his knees with its head upwards; he begins at the throat and shears downward, so that, when his work is completed, the fleece drops off in a single piece. As fast as the sheep are sheared, the fleeces are gathered by the man whose duty it is to collect them. They are then taken to the baling house, and, when a sufficient quant.i.ty has been obtained, the fleeces are made into bales, in much the same way that cotton is baled on an American plantation."

Mr. Johnson then led the way to the baling house, or rather the baling room, as it was in the same building where the shearing is carried on.

The baling apparatus proved to be a simple affair, nothing more than a press, very much like a cotton or hay press, and handled in the same way. The bales of wool usually weigh about four hundred pounds, and are manipulated with hooks, just as cotton bales are handled.

Ned asked if it was necessary to have the wool perfectly dry when packing it.

"Yes, indeed," was the reply; "and for that reason all work in the wool shed must stop during wet weather. The fleeces, when taken from the sheep, must be absolutely dry, and if the sheep are caught out in a rain, it takes two or three days to dry them thoroughly. It is a serious loss of time when we have occasional rainy days, as we lose not only the rainy day itself, but not less than one or two clear days afterwards in order to have the fleeces in proper condition for baling."

Other observations were made around the wool shed, and about the time that they were concluded a flock of sheep came in from its day's pasturage. There were about five hundred sheep in the flock, accompanied by the shepherd and his dog. They were not driven to the wool shed, but to a yard a little distance away from it. The sheep were in good condition and evidently well cared for.

Harry remarked as much to the owner, who answered that the man in charge of them was a very faithful shepherd, and he added that he might well be so, as he was constantly under the eye of his employer.

After looking at the flock and visiting several other buildings of the establishment, the party returned to the house, and in due course of time sat down to dinner. The entertainment was very much like that of the cattle station. The cooking was good, the host was attentive, the meal was enlivened by stories of sheep-farming life, and altogether the occasion was a pleasant one.

The next morning Mr. Johnson accompanied his guests in a horseback ride over a portion of his grounds. As the sheep run covered an area of about one hundred square miles, it was too much to expect that they would examine the whole of it. They visited two or three of the out-stations, and saw the shepherds caring for their flocks. Each of the out-stations that they visited consisted of a hut for two men, and two yards where the sheep were kept at night. As already mentioned in our account of the visit of the party to a sheep farm in South Africa, each shepherd started out in the morning with his flock, moving it slowly along so as to reach water about noon, and then slowly feeding it back again, reaching the station about nightfall.

Nearly every shepherd has a sheep dog, partly for the sake of companionship and partly for a.s.sistance. A good sheep dog is a very useful and valuable animal. He aids the shepherd in keeping the flock together whenever any of them show a disposition to straggle, and the sheep speedily learn to know him and regard him as their friend. He never injures them, though he frequently makes a great pretense of doing so. Sometimes he takes a refractory sheep by the ear, or seizes it by the wool on his neck, but the case is exceedingly rare where he perpetrates an actual bite.

The favorite dog for the shepherd is the collie, but other kinds are employed, and many an ordinary cur has been trained by an intelligent master so that he made an excellent sheep dog, though he can never attain the excellence of the genuine collie. The real shepherd dog will accomplish more than would be possible for a man under the same circ.u.mstances. He will drive a flock from place to place, gather them together to be counted, and take them from one field to another much quicker than a man could do it. A story is told of an instance that happened in Scotland, to James Hogg, known in literature as "The Ettrick Shepherd." Seven hundred sheep broke loose one night from his charge, and scampered off in three divisions across the plain. It was too dark to see anything for any appreciable distance, and the shepherd supposed he would have to wait until morning, and then take his chances of collecting his animals. Shortly afterwards he missed his dog. In the morning he went out to look for the sheep, but saw no sign of them until he reached the edge of a ravine and looked over the side. There he saw the dog guarding the entire flock, not one of the seven hundred being missing. How he ever managed to collect them in the dark, his owner could not imagine. A dozen, or even a hundred men, would have failed where he succeeded.

Near the end of the last century there was a sheep stealer in Scotland, who was finally discovered and hanged for his crimes, who used to carry on his trade by the aid of his dog. He traveled about the country under pretense of buying sheep, though he rarely bought any. While looking at a flock, he would pick one of the fattest and give a secret signal to his dog, indicating the animal. That night the dog would come to the flock where the sheep belonged, often traveling several miles to do it; then would pick out the identical animal and drive it to his master. If he happened, at any time, to meet his master on the road while going on one of his stealing expeditions, the dog would give no sign of recognition, and treat his master as a perfect stranger. When the man's guilt was discovered, and he was tried and condemned for his crime, the dog was also condemned to be hanged; but it was afterwards concluded that the dog was simply an instrument, in the hands of his owner, and not responsible for his actions. He was given to a shepherd, who kept the animal as long as he lived; and, according to the shepherd's account, the dog was never afterwards guilty of any crime.

During their ride among the out-stations of the sheep run, our young friends learned several things connected with the industry of raising wool for the market.

One fact which they learned was, that for a portion of the year, a great many sheep farmers are in debt to the bankers at the ports where they send their wool. They have a considerable amount of money to pay out during the course of the year before shearing time, and consequently they require advances from their bankers. It is not at all difficult to obtain money in advance on a crop of wool, and in this respect a sheep run has an advantage over a cattle run. Even when the sheep farmer is growing rich, and has money laid by, he often prefers to obtain advances on his wool crop rather than use his own money for carrying on business.

When the crop comes in, all the indebtedness is paid off, and there is usually a good balance left. This may be set aside and invested, or it may remain at the banker's, to be drawn whenever wanted.

Sheep farmers keep very little money at their stations in the country districts for fear of attracting bushrangers, or other individuals, whose ideas of the rights of property do not harmonize with those of society in general. In many cases laborers are paid off by check, and not in cash, and it is no uncommon sight to see a laboring man, in an Australian town or village, flourishing a check previous to turning it into money, which he proceeds to spend with a liberal hand.

Another point that they learned was, that there are certain portions of Australia between the mountains and the coast, particularly in Queensland, that are not adapted to sheep, though they make excellent pasturage for cattle. In these localities there is a gra.s.s that has a barb on its edges, and when once it becomes attached to the wool of the sheep, it steadily works its way inward until it pierces the skin of the animal, and eventually causes its death. Cattle are not affected by this gra.s.s, as it does not penetrate their skins. They walk in it and feed upon it with impunity, and in any of the regions where this gra.s.s is found there is no attempt at rearing sheep, but the land is devoted to cattle raising.

CHAPTER XVII.

FROM MELBOURNE TO SYDNEY--CROSSING THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.

When their visit to the sheep run was concluded, our friends returned to Melbourne, where they spent two or three days, and then proceeded to Sydney. Two ways were open to them, one by sea, and the other by land; they chose the latter, as it would give them an opportunity to see more of the country than if they went by water. The water journey is mostly made by night, and consequently they would be deprived of a sight of the picturesque coast which lies between the two cities.

The railway out of Melbourne runs through a picturesque country, as it ascends the slope of the dividing range of mountains in the neighborhood of the city. There are many country residences of gentlemen concerned in business in Melbourne, and the country has a prosperous appearance.

Further away on the slope of the range, our friends pa.s.sed through large wheat fields, sheep and cattle runs, occasional patches of forest, and not infrequently crossed small rivers flowing on their way to the sea.

They also crossed a goodly number of dry beds of rivers, which had every appearance of being full and running over in the season of heavy rains.

The side of the range next the coast receives more rain than the other side of it, and the reasons therefor have been given in a previous chapter.

After the train had pa.s.sed the crest of the range, it rolled along through a broken and undulating country, largely devoted to sheep and cattle raising, and having many stretches of blue gum forest. In some places great numbers of rabbits were visible, but this was a sight to which the eyes of our young friends had become accustomed. As they approached the frontier of the colony of Victoria, Dr. Whitney remarked that they would spend the rest of the day and the night at Albury, so as to have another view of the Murray River, and study the peculiarities of the colonial frontier.

"I believe," said Harry, "that we have our baggage examined at the frontier, just as it is examined at the frontiers of the empires and kingdoms of Europe."

"Yes," replied the doctor, "that is the case; and I suppose the examination will be a light one for us, as we are going out of a protection colony into a free trade one. If we were going the other way, the custom house officials would be more particular."

"How is that?" Ned asked.

"Why, don't you see?" the doctor answered, "a protection country is on the lookout for goods that may interfere with its manufacturing interests; the free trade one has no such care for its manufacturing industries, but levies its duties on articles of luxury princ.i.p.ally.

When you come into the United States, your baggage is examined much more carefully than when you go into England. England is a free trade country, while our own is a protection one; at least it has been for the greater part of the time since it began its existence."

"It is rather a strange circ.u.mstance," remarked Ned, "that two colonies of the same country, lying side by side, and one of them an offshoot of the other, should be so radically different in their tariff laws. How do you account for it, sir?"