第42章 CHAPTER X(2)

We will say a couple of good bush hands,who will put up your hut and yards and wool-shed.If you are in a hurry and have plenty of money you can have more.Besides these you will want a bullock driver and shepherd,unless you are shepherd yourself.You must manage the cooking among you as best you can,and must be content to wash up yourself,taking your full part in the culinary processes,or you will soon find disaffection in the camp;but if you can afford to have a cook,have one by all means.It is a great nuisance to come in from a long round after sheep and find the fire out and no hot water to make tea,and to have to set to work immediately to get your men's supper;for they cannot earn their supper and cook it at the same time.The difficulty is that good boys are hard to get,and a man that is worth anything at all will hardly take to cooking as a profession.Hence it comes to pass that the cooks are generally indolent and dirty fellows,who don't like hard work.Your college education,if you have had one,will doubtless have made you familiar with the art of making bread;you will now proceed to discover the mysteries of boiling potatoes.The uses of dripping will begin to dawn upon you,and you will soon become expert in the manufacture of tallow candles.You will wash your own clothes,and will learn that you must not boil flannel shirts,and experience will teach you that you must eschew the promiscuous use of washing soda,tempting though indeed it be if you are in a hurry.If you use collars,I can inform you that Glenfield starch is the only starch used in the laundries of our most gracious Sovereign;I tell you this in confidence,as it is not generally advertised.

To return to the culinary department.Your natural poetry of palate will teach you the proper treatment of the onion,and you will ere long be able to handle that inestimable vegetable with the breadth yet delicacy which it requires.Many other things you will learn,which for your sake as well as my own I will not enumerate here.Let the above suffice for examples.

At first your wethers will run with your ewes,and you will only want one shepherd;but as soon as the mob gets up to two or three thousand the wethers should be kept separate;you will then want another shepherd.As soon as you have secured your run you must buy sheep;otherwise you lose time,as the run is only valuable for the sheep it carries.Bring sheep,shepherd,men,stores,all at one and the same time.Some wethers must be included in your purchase,otherwise you will run short of meat,as none of your own breeding will be ready for the knife for a year and a half,to say the least of it.No wether should be killed till it is two years old,and then it is murder to kill an animal which brings you in such good interest by its wool,and would even be better if suffered to live three years longer,when you will have had its value in its successive fleeces.It will,however,pay you better to invest nearly all your money in ewes,and to kill your own young stock,than to sink more capital than is absolutely necessary in wethers.

Start your dray,then,from town and join it with your sheep on the way up.Your sheep will not travel more than ten miles a day if you are to do them justice;so your dray must keep pace with them.You will generally find plenty of firewood on the track.You can camp under the dray at night.In about a week you will get on to your run,and very glad you will feel when you are safely come to the end of your journey.

See the horses properly looked to at once;then set up the tent,make a good fire,put the kettle on,out with the frying-pan and get your supper,smoke the calumet of peace,and go to bed.

The first question is,Where shall you place your homestead?You must put it in such a situation as will be most convenient for working the sheep.These are the real masters of the place--the run is theirs,not yours:you cannot bear this in mind too diligently.All considerations of pleasantness of site must succumb to this.You must fix on such a situation as not to cut up the run,by splitting off a little corner too small to give the sheep free scope and room.They will fight rather shy of your homestead,you may be certain;so the homestead must be out of their way.You MUST,however,have water and firewood at hand,which is a great convenience,to say nothing of the saving of labour and expense.

Therefore,if you can find a bush near a stream,make your homestead on the lee side of it.A stream is a boundary,and your hut,if built in such a position,will interfere with your sheep as little as possible.

The sheep will make for rising ground and hill-side to camp at night,and generally feed with their heads up the wind,if it is not too violent.As your mob increases,you can put an out-station on the other side the run.

In order to prevent the sheep straying beyond your boundaries,keep ever hovering at a distance round them,so far off that they shall not be disturbed by your presence,and even be ignorant that you are looking at them.Sheep cannot be too closely watched,or too much left to themselves.You must remember they are your masters,and not you theirs;you exist for them,not they for you.If you bear this well in mind,you will be able to turn the tables on them effectually at shearing-time.But if you once begin to make the sheep suit their feeding-hours to your convenience,you may as well give up sheep-farming at once.You will soon find the mob begin to look poor,your percentage of lambs will fall off,and in fact you will have to pay very heavily for saving your own trouble,as indeed would be the case in every occupation or profession you might adopt.

Of course you will have to turn your sheep back when they approach the boundary of your neighbour.Be ready,then,at the boundary.You have been watching them creeping up in a large semicircle toward the forbidden ground.As long as they are on their own run let them alone,give them not a moment's anxiety of mind;but directly they reach the boundary,show yourself with your dog in your most terrific aspect.