THE AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXX, Issue LXXX, 7 January 1920, Page 8

THE AUSTRALIAN DROUGHT

HEAVY LOSSES OF SHEEP. The city man, surrounded by all the amenities that make life worth living, knows little, and sometimes cares less, of the trials of the man outback, whos* life, far from being a perpetual delight, is something of a nightmare, what with drought or some other pestilence, says the Sydney correspondent of the Otago Daily Tiroes! Wild dogs, sneaking like ghostly figures among the flocks, are causing immense losses west of the Darling). It was a. terrible picture that a deputation to the Minister for Lands the other day drew of the depredations of the wild dog. Through drought and ' dogs this year they had lost 100,000 sheep. Of these losses, 50 per cent. {were dlue to the dlogs. Apart from ttese losses, it is a costly business to get rid ,of the wild dogs. In some ir stances , they have had to pay £5 per scalp. The dogs, according to the deputation, are making it impossible for sheep to be run ■on the lands affected. The prospect for the small man seems to be about as black as Erebus1; he can only abandon his holding if the dogs get full sway. The bigger man has a chance of giving the affected land over to cattle. ■ The j landowners, have spent about £20,000 in j building several hundred miles of dogproof fences and in keeping them in repair. The deputation asked the Gevernment to build '150 miles of new fence within the State and repair 180 miles

of partially dog-proof fence at an estimated cost of £50,000. This new fence and other assistance the Minister promised. All that the landowners are asked to do is to cope with the dogs inside the fence. Even this is a big and expensive job, for, to take only O r-e set of'figures quoted, they had to pay £1529 for 425 dogs that were killed. One thing certain that in the new Federal Parliament the voice of the man on the will not be as the bleating of a 'amb in the wilderness. What might Le frmed the Country Pary will pracically iold the balance of power, and it is sure to make itself felt, especially as many of its members are experienced Parliamentarians.