Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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THE BEAOT :SOME SLOGA T. 13 Australia is chiefly a pastoral country at present, and land is judged by its carrying capacity for sheep and cattle on the natural grasses all the year round. There is rich land worth £100 per acre, and poor land held under pastoral lease from the Crown at 5 shillings or 10 shillings per 1,000 acres per annum, and which will carry a sheep to 10 acres. In country of the latter class, stations of from 500,000 to 1,000,000 acres are quite usual. Our country is often called The Land of the Golden Fleece, ' and rightly, because the greater part of the revenue springs from wool and gold. From some stations out back ' perhaps a hundred miles from a town, wool has to be carted a long distance to the railway. This takes place once a year, and it is by the return waggons that the year ' s rations are brought in. The waggons are pulled by teams of bullocks, powerful but slow, and the drivers are famed for the strange language they use in addressing their teams. The Aborigines or black, fellows ' ' still remaining in Australia are mostly in the north-west, called the Kimberley district, the northern territory and the north of Queensland. These hot and unhealthy sections are almost uninhabited by white men, who fear the malaria and ague; but the rainfall is good, and the country capable of great development. There has been much in our papers about Our Empty North and the fear of invasion by Chinese or Japs. The Eiverina, in New South Wales, and many other parts of Aus- tralia are level stretches of country, usually without a sign of trees, but sometimes interspersed with a belt of timber every few miles, or a sandhill with a few pines. From this you may conclude that the soil is poor and the grass scarce for sheep-raising, except in a rainy season. Many men have been ruined gambling with the seasons. Victoria is the smallest of the five States, but perhaps the richest. A warm and genial climate characterizes the colony, called by the early explorers Australia Felix, ' ' on account of its beauty and fertility. Gold, however, was the creator of Victoria. In 1850 valuable gold- fields were discovered, and the usual rush followed. In time the alluvial gold gave out, and people ' s thoughts turned to other ways of gaining wealth. Towns and industries sprang up, and people spread over the whole State. The land was found to be suitable for pastoral purposes, and sheep and cattle were brought over from Tasmania and successfully bred. The larger stations have gradually been cut up and sold for purposes of closer settlement, till now very few of more than 10,000 acres remain. My home is in West Victoria, where the land is very rich, and, besides yielding large quantities of potatoes and onions, is suitable

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12 THE BEAOTvSOME SLOGAN. ONE NIGHT The car took me to the door, and I climbed a flight of steps so high that it was a matter of surprise to find no angels descending. No! angels never ascended those steps nor were admitted into that wholly delightful but common New York house. Surely the house was twelve feet wide and twelve times as high. My first idea was stairs. ' Stairs from dining-room to office, stairs from office to sitting-room, stairs from sitting-room to bedroom. Not wide, palatial stairs. All, no! What would be the use of wide stairs ? Space means money. There- fore they are one foot wide. Woe to him who exceedeth that horizon- tal measurement. The night of my arrival was less disturbed than seemed natural, but all night long there was the thundering of the elevated and surface cars, and in the intervals horrible, blood-curdling shrieks of an infant in agony. I lay petrified, while there rose in my mind stories of cruelty to children in this huge city. I had a vision of a poor, aban- doned baby, lying in the cold on an opposite doorstep, and determined to heroically rescue it. I rose and lifted the blind. Babies faded from my mind. There, on top of a high wooden fence, silhouetted against the brightly-lit back door of a saloon, were numberless black spirits, with hooped backs and glaring eyes, stalking purposefully up and down, and sending forth the most heartrending shrieks to disturb the slumbers of the just as well as unjust. Quietly I crawled into bed, and was lured to slumber by the strains of Take me out to the Ball Game, played by the German band in the afore-mentioned saloon. I finally sank into oblivion, misquoting : Oh ! soft embalmer of the still midnight Shielding with careful fingers and benign Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine. AUSTRALIA Australia is so extensive that many of us, who live in the more settled parts, know very little about it as a whole. Living in Victoria, where settlement is fairly close, and where there is a good system of railways, one is inclined to forget the vast stretch of country in other States, which is scarcely opened up. Indeed, in parts the Aborigines live almost undisturbed. Of course, there are sections where the rain- fall is so scarce as to make the land unfit for occupation, but there is much good country lying undisturbed, which will eventually be settled and turned to account when the surplus population of other continents finds its way there.

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14 THE BEANKSOME SLOGAN. for dairying, and many graziers, my father among the number, lease part of their land to dairy farmers. The dairy farms consist of a few hundred acres. One or two hundred cows are milked night and morn- ing, and the cream is taken to a butter factory, or cheese-making is carried on on the premises. There is much hard work, but profits are sure where there is seldom fear of drought. In the north-west and Wimmera districts, agriculture predominates, and when a good year comes the yields of wheat are enormous and the farmers prosper. This district, however, is subject to droughts, which last sometimes for years, and thousands are ruined. The crops won ' t grow, horses die, there is no water, and families almost starve. Although Victoria is comparatively cleared of bush, yet in the north-eastern portion and in Gippsland there is an over-abundance of timber. There are forests of enormous gum trees and lesser trees, and fern gullies are plentiful. The climate in this continent is so varied that nearly every plant will grow but the native vegetation is peculiar to Australia. The trees most prevalent belong either to the non- deciduous families — Eucalyptus, which includes all gum trees, and Acacia, which includes all wattle trees. Wattle trees have lovely golden blossom in the form of little round fluffy balls massed together, and these emit a strong, agreeable perfume. We have no snow in Australia, except in the very highest parts (Australian Alps, Mt. Kosciusko, 7,000 feet). Though there may be an occasional light fall elsewhere, it never lies. Many Australians have never seen a real snowstorm such as you rejoice in. Consequently we grow flowers all the year round, and even the tiniest cottages revel in their beautiful gardens blazing with the colors of roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, narcissus and many others attractive in their season. The early settlers in Australia had no fierce animals to contend with, their chief enemy being the black fellow. ' ' The largest animal is the kangaroo, found only in Australia and some islands of the Pacific. Then there is the opossum, one species of which hangs by its tail to the branches of trees; the native bear, which is harmless; and the dingo, or wild dog. Another peculiar animal is the duck-billed platy- pus, which is web-footed, has a bill like a duck, and is amphibious. Its young are hatched from eggs, but it is also a mammal. We have an abundance and variety of bird life. Parrots, paroquets and cockatoos, all brilliantly plumaged, are numerous. The bell-bird is famed for its call, which resembles the sound of a bell. The lyre bird owes its name to the fact that its sixteen tail feathers are arranged in the form of a lyre. Among songsters the magpie is a type. His song is musical and cheerful, and when one hears a goroke chorus a sunny day may be expected. The kookaburra, or laughing jackass,