I Shall Have From The Wool Money A Surplus
Of 630 Pounds (Some Of Which Should Have Been Making Ten Per Cent
Interest For Some Time); That Is To Say, My Total Receipts For The Sheep
Should Be At The Least 1530 Pounds.
Say that the capital had only
doubled itself in the seven years, the investment could not be
considered a bad one.
The above is a bona-fide statement of one of the
commonest methods of investing money in sheep. I cannot think from all
I have heard that sheep will be lower than 10s. a head, still some place
the minimum value as low as 6s. {3}
The question arises, What is to be done with one's money when the term
is out? I cannot answer; yet surely the colony cannot be quite used up
in seven years, and one can hardly suppose but that, even in that
advanced state of the settlement, means will not be found of investing a
few thousand pounds to advantage.
The general recommendation which I receive is to buy the goodwill of a
run; this cannot be done under about 100 pounds for every thousand
acres. Thus, a run of 20,000 acres will be worth 2000 pounds. Still,
if a man has sufficient capital to stock it well at once, it will pay
him, even at this price. We will suppose the run to carry 10,000 sheep.
The wool money from these should be 2500 pounds per annum. If a man can
start with 2000 ewes, it will not be long before he finds himself worth
10,000 sheep. Then the sale of surplus stock which he has not country
to feed should fetch him in fully 1000 pounds per annum; so that,
allowing the country to cost 2000 pounds, and the sheep 2500 pounds, and
allowing 1000 pounds for working, plant, buildings, dray, bullocks, and
stores, and 500 pounds more for contingencies and expenses of the first
two years, during which the run will not fully pay its own expenses - for
a capital of 6000 pounds a man may in a few years find himself possessed
of something like a net income of 2000 pounds per annum. Marvellous as
all this sounds, I am assured that it is true. {4} On the other hand,
there are risks. There is the uncertainty of what will be done in the
year 1870, when the runs lapse to the Government. The general opinion
appears to be, that they will be re-let, at a greatly advanced rent, to
the present occupiers. The present rent of land is a farthing per acre
for the first and second years, a halfpenny for the third, and three
farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year. Most of the waste
lands in the province are now paying three farthings per acre. There is
the danger also of scab. This appears to depend a good deal upon the
position of the run and its nature. Thus, a run situated in the plains
over which sheep are being constantly driven from the province of
Nelson, will be in more danger than one on the remoter regions of the
back country. In Nelson there are few, if any, laws against
carelessness in respect of scab. In Canterbury the laws are very
stringent. Sheep have to be dipped three months before they quit
Nelson, and inspected and re-dipped (in tobacco water and sulphur) on
their entry into this province. Nevertheless, a single sheep may remain
infected, even after this second dipping. The scab may not be apparent,
but it may break out after having been a month or two in a latent state.
One sheep will infect others, and the whole mob will soon become
diseased; indeed, a mob is considered unsound, and compelled to be
dipped, if even a single scabby sheep have joined it. Dipping is an
expensive process, and if a man's sheep trespass on to his neighbour's
run he has to dip his neighbour's also. Moreover, scab may break out
just before or in mid-winter, when it is almost impossible, on the
plains, to get firewood sufficient to boil the water and tobacco (sheep
must be dipped whilst the liquid is at a temperature of not less than 90
degrees), and when the severity of the sou'-westers renders it nearly
certain that a good few sheep will be lost. Lambs, too, if there be
lambs about, will be lost wholesale. If the sheep be not clean within
six months after the information is laid, the sum required to be
deposited with Government by the owner, on the laying of such
information, is forfeited. This sum is heavy, though I do not exactly
know its amount. One dipping would not be ruinous, but there is always
a chance of some scabby sheep having been left upon the run unmustered,
and the flock thus becoming infected afresh, so that the whole work may
have to be done over again. I perceive a sort of shudder to run through
a sheep farmer at the very name of this disease. There are no four
letters in the alphabet which he appears so mortally to detest, and with
good reason.
Another mode of investment highly spoken of is that of buying land and
laying it down in English grass, thus making a permanent estate of it.
But I fear this will not do for me, both because it requires a large
experience of things in general, which, as you well know, I do not
possess, and because I should want a greater capital than would be
required to start a run. More money is sunk, and the returns do not
appear to be so speedy. I cannot give you even a rough estimate of the
expenses of such a plan. I will only say that I have seen gentlemen who
are doing it, and who are confident of success, and these men bear the
reputation of being shrewd and business-like.
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