Glengarry's head man and manager of the enterprise was a poor
gentleman from Tipperary named Dancer, and his chief stockman was
Sandy Fraser.
By the regulations then in force in New South Wales, Glengarry was
entitled, for a fee of 10 pounds per annum, to hold under a
depasturing license an area of twenty square miles, on which he might
place 500 head of cattle or 4,000 sheep. He selected a site for his
head station and residence on the banks of the Tarra. The house was
built, huts and stockyards were erected, 500 dairy cows were bought
at 10 pounds each, and the business of dairy farming commenced.
But the young chief and his men were unused to the management of a
station in the new country; they had everything to learn, and at a
ruinous cost.
A number of young men bailed up the cows each morning, and put on the
leg ropes; then they sat on the top rails of the stockyard fence and
waited while the maids drew the milk. Dancer superintended the
labours of the men and the milkmaids. He sat in his office in a
corner of the stockyard, entering in his books the number of cattle
milked, and examining the state of their brands, which were daubed on
the hides with paint and brush. Some cheese was made, but it was not
of much account, and all the milk and butter were consumed on the
station.
At this time the blacks had quite recovered from the fright
occasioned by the discharge of the nine-pounder gun, and were again
often seen from the huts at the Old Port.
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