Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/56

 now fetch. It can, however, be eradicated almost with certainty in six months, or a year at farthest, if proper means are used, and if there is room enough to give the sheep clean ground to run on. Foot rot is very troublesome in the western and southern parts of the district towards Port Fairy and« Portland Bay. Catarrh, the great scourge of the Sydney district, is unknown in Port Phillip. Some time ago, indeed, I heard rumours of its having attacked some flocks in the neighbourhood of the Campaspe, but I never heard more of it.

When we consider the class of men who have embarked in sheep-farming, without the least previous knowledge on the subject, the wonder is not that there have been mistakes and mismanagement, but that there has been so little of them. Officers of the army and navy, retired barristers, half-pay linen-drapers, doctors, quakers, captains of whalers, merchants, and traders—in fact, men of all professions, and the most opposite pursuits, are to be found settled upon their stations in the bush, and seem in general as equal to the management of them as men brought up to rural occupations in England. Those who have managed to steer clear of debt will now do very well. But many bought their sheep originally on long credit, and at high prices, hoping to be able to sell them again at the same rate, so as to meet their bills, and to be able to retain the increase. All these men, I need scarcely say, are insolvent. Others purchased to the utmost of their means, and had to go in debt for stores to the merchant who supplied them, who was enabled to charge what he liked, and to take the wool in payment at his own va-