Volume 67: Macarthur family papers relating to livestock, 1814-1884: No. 361

[Page 361]

Report - 8

There were twenty-two ponies, divided into two classes, of not exceeding 12 and 14 hands respectively.  Of the larger size the prize was given to an aged animal, descended from Saladin.  The prize-taker in the smaller class was of unknown descent.

Cattle.

The cattle-sheds at the Exhibition competed fully with those of the horses in enlisting public attention, and contained really more to admire on the part of those who are acquainted with the productive industries of the Colony.  For not only is the stock of cattle far more numerous and more valuable than that of horses, but taken as a whole it is relatively of superior quality.  For though the very best of the thoroughbred horse-stock may be better in comparison than the best of the cattle, yet the great bulk of the latter are superior to the great bulk of the former.  The same causes that have brought about the deterioration of the horse-stock have also operated to keep down the excellence of the cattle;  but their influence has been limited by the constant and profitable demand for bullocks of good quality for food.  There has not been any concentration of attention on one pet class to the comparative neglect of all the rest, but the attention has been more generally diffused, and the influence of the imported stock has been more widely spread.  Although very much remains to be done to perfect the breeds of our cattle, and bring up the average quality to a standard, which, though high, is quite practicable, there is on the whole less reason for regret and more matter for congratulation with respect to our horned stock than our horses.

According to the Statistical Register of 1869, the cattle in the Colony during the past nine years have numbered as follows:-
 

The decrease observable in the number since 1863 is due partly to the ravages of pleuro-pneumonia, and partly to the fact that about that time the squatters were giving a great preference to sheep over cattle.  Wool was then realising a very high price, and sheep stations were paying better than cattle runs - a process that has since been reversed.

The major part of the cattle, fully two-thirds, is of course to be found in the pastoral districts.  Speaking generally, it may be said that the breeding herds occupy the table-land, intermediate, and coast districts.  The grasses here are comparatively coarse, and ill adapted for sheep, which in these portions of the country are found to be liable to fluke and foot-rot.

Among the pastoral districts, New England possesses the largest number of cattle, other districts ranking in importance in the following order:-  The Clarence, the Gwydir, the Lachlan, Liverpool Plains, and the Murrumbidgee.  It is from these districts that our principal supply of store cattle bred in this Colony mainly come.  The counties rank in the following order:-  Camden, Durham, St. Vincent, Cumberland, Northumberland, and Brisbane.  Ranked as to quality the pastoral districts of Clarence, Wellington, and Bligh take the lead, while among the counties, Argyle, Camden, and Durham, occupy a corresponding position.

It cannot be said, however, that any particular district has acquired a special reputation for any particular breed.  As a whole our cattle are more Durham than anything else, with a sprinkling of somewhere about a tenth or a twelfth of Hereford blood.  There is little or no uniformity, either in quality, colour, or shape, and there is plenty of room for improvement in each particular.  This want of uniformity, with the too general mediocrity that accompanies it, is due to a large extent, to the great variety of breeds from which our cattle are descended.  There is in them more or less of the blood of all our principal British and Irish breeds, to which is to be added a dash of the Cape breed, and to make confusion worse confounded, too many cattle-owners have proceeded on the principle that an intermixture was a good thing, and have regarded it as good management to keep up a continual round of changes in their bulls.  The unenclosed con-