Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/174

 cattle in the Australian colonies, I will therefore only consider cattle as valuable for their tallow, hides, horns, glue, and bones. Ordinary four-year old bullocks, and cows of the same age, would, if slaughtered and boiled down, yield at any rate eighty pounds of tallow, whilst fat bullocks of six years old and upwards would yield a much larger quantity.

Some Australian tallow having been sold for 42s. per cwt. in the London market, I will suppose 32s. per cwt. to be the value of the tallow to the stockholder, which will allow amply for the expense of slaughtering, boiling, freight, &c,

The intrinsic value of a four-year old beast may be therefore taken as follows: —

In the event of the Australian colonists being unable to sell their salted beef, mixed herds of cattle might still therefore be safely assumed to be worth at least thirty shillings per head.

Although the yearly increase of homed cattle is