Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/39

for sheep, at a minimum price. When completed, one establishment alone, near Melbourne, will be capable of boiling down 1000 sheep a day, if required; and when more economy is used in turning every part of the animal to account, probably a less charge than one shilling a head will afford ample remuneration for rendering them down. A similar experiment has been tried with cattle, but they are not found to yield so large a per centage of tallow as sheep; old ewes answer better than wedders, and old cows than bullocks. There are two or three establishments for this purpose near Melbourne, one at Geelong, one at Port Fairy, and one at Portland Bay. The same system is not pursued in all, as in some the sheep are rendered down in their own fat, but that which I have described is the method most approved of. The only danger is that people may overdo the thing to such an extent as to injure the export of wool, the real mainstay of the country. As, however, the annual increase of sheep is upwards of 400,000, there will be room left for a considerable export of tallow, without producing this effect. Probably a more profitable mode of disposing of part of this tallow would be to manufacture stearine candles at Melbourne. Stearine is obtained from tallow, either by pressure, or by a chemical process. The ceoline, or oily principle, which remains after the separation of the stearine, is said to produce an oil superior to sperm oil. The candles have the appearance of spermaceti candles; and might be manufactured, not only for colonial use, but for exportation: the freight and charges which now amount to one fourth of the whole value of the tallow, would of course bear a much