The Fact Is, They Are More Your Equals And
More Independent Of You, And, This Being The Case, You Must Treat Them
Accordingly.
I do not advise you for one moment to submit to
disrespect; this would be a fatal error.
A man whose conduct does not
satisfy you must be sent about his business as certainly as in England;
but when you have men who DO suit you, you must, besides paying them
handsomely, expect them to treat you rather as an English yeoman would
speak to the squire of his parish than as an English labourer would
speak to him. The labour markets will not be so bad but that good men
can be had, and as long as you put up with bad men it serves you right
to be the loser by your weakness.
Some good hands are very improvident, and will for the most part spend
their money in drinking, a very short time after they have earned it.
They will come back possibly with a DEAD HORSE TO WORK OFF - that is, a
debt at the accommodation house - and will work hard for another year to
have another drinking bout at the end of it. This is a thing fatally
common here. Such men are often first-rate hands and thoroughly good
fellows when away from drink; but, on the whole, saving men are perhaps
the best. Commend yourself to a good screw for a shepherd; if he knows
the value of money he knows the value of lambs, and if he has contracted
the habit of being careful with his own money he will be apt to be so
with yours also. But in justice to the improvident, it must be owned
they are often admirable men save in the one point of sobriety.
Their political knowledge is absolutely nil, and, were the colony to
give them political power, it might as well give gunpowder to children.
How many hands shall you want?
We will say a couple of good bush hands, who will put up your hut and
yards and wool-shed. If you are in a hurry and have plenty of money you
can have more. Besides these you will want a bullock driver and
shepherd, unless you are shepherd yourself. You must manage the cooking
among you as best you can, and must be content to wash up yourself,
taking your full part in the culinary processes, or you will soon find
disaffection in the camp; but if you can afford to have a cook, have one
by all means. It is a great nuisance to come in from a long round after
sheep and find the fire out and no hot water to make tea, and to have to
set to work immediately to get your men's supper; for they cannot earn
their supper and cook it at the same time. The difficulty is that good
boys are hard to get, and a man that is worth anything at all will
hardly take to cooking as a profession. Hence it comes to pass that the
cooks are generally indolent and dirty fellows, who don't like hard
work. Your college education, if you have had one, will doubtless have
made you familiar with the art of making bread; you will now proceed to
discover the mysteries of boiling potatoes. The uses of dripping will
begin to dawn upon you, and you will soon become expert in the
manufacture of tallow candles. You will wash your own clothes, and will
learn that you must not boil flannel shirts, and experience will teach
you that you must eschew the promiscuous use of washing soda, tempting
though indeed it be if you are in a hurry. If you use collars, I can
inform you that Glenfield starch is the only starch used in the
laundries of our most gracious Sovereign; I tell you this in confidence,
as it is not generally advertised.
To return to the culinary department. Your natural poetry of palate
will teach you the proper treatment of the onion, and you will ere long
be able to handle that inestimable vegetable with the breadth yet
delicacy which it requires. Many other things you will learn, which for
your sake as well as my own I will not enumerate here. Let the above
suffice for examples.
At first your wethers will run with your ewes, and you will only want
one shepherd; but as soon as the mob gets up to two or three thousand
the wethers should be kept separate; you will then want another
shepherd. As soon as you have secured your run you must buy sheep;
otherwise you lose time, as the run is only valuable for the sheep it
carries. Bring sheep, shepherd, men, stores, all at one and the same
time. Some wethers must be included in your purchase, otherwise you
will run short of meat, as none of your own breeding will be ready for
the knife for a year and a half, to say the least of it. No wether
should be killed till it is two years old, and then it is murder to kill
an animal which brings you in such good interest by its wool, and would
even be better if suffered to live three years longer, when you will
have had its value in its successive fleeces. It will, however, pay you
better to invest nearly all your money in ewes, and to kill your own
young stock, than to sink more capital than is absolutely necessary in
wethers.
Start your dray, then, from town and join it with your sheep on the way
up. Your sheep will not travel more than ten miles a day if you are to
do them justice; so your dray must keep pace with them. You will
generally find plenty of firewood on the track. You can camp under the
dray at night. In about a week you will get on to your run, and very
glad you will feel when you are safely come to the end of your journey.
See the horses properly looked to at once; then set up the tent, make a
good fire, put the kettle on, out with the frying-pan and get your
supper, smoke the calumet of peace, and go to bed.
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