again.
From the increase- of sheen, the sale of wool, the fat wethers and
cattle, and the impossibility of spending money in the Lush, the
squatter must become wealthy in spite of himself. But he must attend
diligently to his own interests, or his men will very soon become
negligent of them, and all will go wrong. His only companion will be
his horse, and the companionship should be inseparable, except -when
sleeping. His eye on every movement will do as much as his capital.
This will be his amusement; for without constant occupation his time
will hang heavily on his hands; and shut cut, as he will be, from
society, without occupation he will he miserable. He has only one
stumbling-block to avoid, and that is, if he go with his wool and his
cattle to Sydney, not to spend the whole of his year's profits in
dissipation, as is done in one-half of the instances in which men take
their own produce to market, squatters being as proverbial as sailors
for getting their money like horses and spending it like asses. The
most prosperous among the squatters never go near Sydney for years,
remaining at their stations till their habits of industry and
temperance—the latter a habit, perforce, where nothing stronger than
tea is to be obtained—become fixed. They are then safe, and, though
stationary, are going at a rapid pace on the high road to wealth, and
consequently influence. Any young man, with moderate capital at the
outset, may thus return home to spend his prime of life in
independence. Few, however, will be inclined s> to do. England, with
its artificial and heartless society, is just the last place in the
world that a herdsman would wish to retire to. His early associations
are broken up, and the only real tie left, the desire of mingling his
bones with those of his forefathers in the village churchyard, will
hardly be powerful enough to detach him from his adopted country.
AVe
will next lay before the reader a concise account of the management of
flocks; and by the term flock he must understand the number placed in
charge of one shepherd. A station is generally composed of more than
one flock, though it
