Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/38

 and packed for exportation; the trotters are boiled for their oil, and the bones exported to make hails for knives. No use is as yet made of the refuse, except as manure, or to feed pigs, which, in process of time, are to be themselves boiled down; nor is the blood (which would be valuable for the manufacture of Prussian blue) turned to any account: but the thing is as yet in its infancy. The legs are either sold in Melbourne at eight pence each, or else cured, and exported to Van Dieman's Land, as mutton hams, and as the sheep must be old and in good condition, the meat is very good. The proprietor charges one shilling for boiling down the sheep, and the legs are taken in payment at one shilling the pair; there is a small extra charge for cooperage. An old ewe, weighing about sixty pounds, when treated in this way will, if fat, yield about twenty-four pounds of tallow, worth three pence per pound in Melbourne. Taking, however, the ewes of the country at fifty pounds, you can, if they are really fat, reckon on twenty pounds of tallow, worth at the least five shillings.

I have thought it necessary to go into the details of this process, as the matter is one of great importance to the colony, and is one on which the most conflicting statements have appeared in the Sydney papers. This system is chiefly valuable as establishing a sure market