dairying
might have been almost as brief as the famous chapter on snakes in
Ireland.

[Illustration: Cream Carts at the Factory.]

"The live stock brought to Sydney by Captain Phillip in 1788, and
sent to propagate their kind at Farm Cove, consisted of one bull,
four cows, one calf, and seven pigs. Their descendants in 1908
included about ten and a-half millions of cattle, of which nearly
two millions were dairy cows. This is about one cow for every two
persons in the Commonwealth, which seems a large proportion, but as
it means only one cow for every two square miles in Australia,
there is ample room for expansion. In Great Britain we have about
twenty-six cows for every square mile, and only one cow for every
fifteen people. These figures indicate that in proportion to its
population Australia is much more of a dairying country than Great
Britain, but that in proportion to its area, it has developed the
industry much less extensively, and is still capable of making
enormous growth. Until within comparatively recent years there was
little dairying anywhere in the Commonwealth, and what little there
was appears to have been carried on by somewhat primitive methods.
Modern developments, the spread of scientific knowledge, the
fostering care of Government, and, above everything, the advent of
the separator, of the milking machine, and of the freezer have
changed all that. To-day the industry is prospering and full of
promise....

"There is no denying the fact that every State in the Commonwealth
has extensive districts where dairying could be carried on very
profitably. Indeed there must be very few parts of the world where
Nature does so much to help and so little to hinder the provident
and industrious producer of milk.

"The most important advantage of all is undoubtedly the climate,
and that, like many another thing of value, is a good servant, but
a bad master. It would not be easy to overstate the benefit a
dairyman receives from being relieved of the need for housing,
hand-feeding, and tending his cows during a long winter. His cows
are healthier, their feeding costs less, there is no cleaning of
byres, no washing of floors, no preparing of food, no never-ending
carting of turnips, no filling of sheds with hay or straw. His
anxi