The wool money from these should be 2500pounds per annum.If a man can start with 2000ewes,it will not be long before he finds himself worth 10,000sheep.Then the sale of surplus stock which he has not country to feed should fetch him in fully 1000pounds per annum;so that,allowing the country to cost 2000pounds,and the sheep 2500pounds,and allowing 1000pounds for working,plant,buildings,dray,bullocks,and stores,and 500pounds more for contingencies and expenses of the first two years,during which the run will not fully pay its own expenses--for a capital of 6000pounds a man may in a few years find himself possessed of something like a net income of 2000pounds per annum.Marvellous as all this sounds,I am assured that it is true.{4}On the other hand,there are risks.There is the uncertainty of what will be done in the year 1870,when the runs lapse to the Government.The general opinion appears to be,that they will be re-let,at a greatly advanced rent,to the present occupiers.The present rent of land is a farthing per acre for the first and second years,a halfpenny for the third,and three farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year.Most of the waste lands in the province are now paying three farthings per acre.There is the danger also of scab.This appears to depend a good deal upon the position of the run and its nature.Thus,a run situated in the plains over which sheep are being constantly driven from the province of Nelson,will be in more danger than one on the remoter regions of the back country.In Nelson there are few,if any,laws against carelessness in respect of scab.In Canterbury the laws are very stringent.Sheep have to be dipped three months before they quit Nelson,and inspected and re-dipped (in tobacco water and sulphur)on their entry into this province.Nevertheless,a single sheep may remain infected,even after this second dipping.The scab may not be apparent,but it may break out after having been a month or two in a latent state.
One sheep will infect others,and the whole mob will soon become diseased;indeed,a mob is considered unsound,and compelled to be dipped,if even a single scabby sheep have joined it.Dipping is an expensive process,and if a man's sheep trespass on to his neighbour's run he has to dip his neighbour's also.Moreover,scab may break out just before or in mid-winter,when it is almost impossible,on the plains,to get firewood sufficient to boil the water and tobacco (sheep must be dipped whilst the liquid is at a temperature of not less than 90degrees),and when the severity of the sou'-westers renders it nearly certain that a good few sheep will be lost.Lambs,too,if there be lambs about,will be lost wholesale.If the sheep be not clean within six months after the information is laid,the sum required to be deposited with Government by the owner,on the laying of such information,is forfeited.This sum is heavy,though I do not exactly know its amount.One dipping would not be ruinous,but there is always a chance of some scabby sheep having been left upon the run unmustered,and the flock thus becoming infected afresh,so that the whole work may have to be done over again.I perceive a sort of shudder to run through a sheep farmer at the very name of this disease.There are no four letters in the alphabet which he appears so mortally to detest,and with good reason.
Another mode of investment highly spoken of is that of buying land and laying it down in English grass,thus making a permanent estate of it.
But I fear this will not do for me,both because it requires a large experience of things in general,which,as you well know,I do not possess,and because I should want a greater capital than would be required to start a run.More money is sunk,and the returns do not appear to be so speedy.I cannot give you even a rough estimate of the expenses of such a plan.I will only say that I have seen gentlemen who are doing it,and who are confident of success,and these men bear the reputation of being shrewd and business-like.I cannot doubt,therefore,that it is both a good and safe investment of money.My crude notion concerning it is,that it is more permanent and less remunerative.In this I may be mistaken,but I am certain it is a thing which might very easily be made a mess of by an inexperienced person;whilst many men,who have known no more about sheep than I do,have made ordinary sheep farming pay exceedingly well.I may perhaps as well say,that land laid down in English grass is supposed to carry about five or six sheep to the acre;some say more and some less.Doubtless,somewhat will depend upon the nature of the soil,and as yet the experiment can hardly be said to have been fully tried.As for farming as we do in England,it is universally maintained that it does not pay;there seems to be no discrepancy of opinion about this.Many try it,but most men give it up.It appears as if it were only bona-fide labouring men who can make it answer.The number of farms in the neighbourhood of Christ Church seems at first to contradict this statement;but I believe the fact to be,that these farms are chiefly in the hands of labouring men,who had made a little money,bought land,and cultivated it themselves.
These men can do well,but those who have to buy labour cannot make it answer.The difficulty lies in the high rate of wages.
February 13.--Since my last I have been paying a visit of a few days at Kaiapoi,and made a short trip up to the Harewood Forest,near to which the township of Oxford is situated.Why it should be called Oxford I do not know.
