fencing out the sheep and cattle from such places, usually small hills, and thus rendering the rest of the land safe and profitable. But it is useless to attempt tasks of this nature, which require not only an energetic employer but also intelligent and careful servants, until a far larger supply of respectable free labour than has yet found its way to Swan River can be introduced. The lazy London pickpocket or housebreaker may do well enough for a shepherd or hut-keeper upon the plains of Victoria or New South Wales, but amongst the forests of West Australia he is worse than useless. Hence the constant cry from the settlers to their friends in England, "above all things send us out respectable intelligent shepherds."
Another evil has arisen from the existence of these poisonous plants; namely, that the internal circulation of the colony has been impeded by the risk involved in driving herds of cattle or flocks of sheep from one district to another. So great is this danger, in some parts of the country, that the Government has been obliged to employ a large force of convicts to grub up the poisonous plants for a distance of a hundred yards on each side of some of the main roads, in order to provide a strip of land over which the animals may be driven with some approach to security, though even with this precaution it is necessary to hurry them over the journey at a quicker rate than is good for them in order to prevent them from straying out of the prepared belt of land.
It is well known that in many parts of Australia bullocks are preferred to horses for dragging the heavy drays loaded with wool from the country stations to the capital. This method of conveying heavy goods is forbidden to
