CHAPTER IX
KILFERA
Our border ruffians being settled with for good and all, we pioneers were enabled to devote ourselves to our legitimate business—the breeding and fattening of cattle. For this industry the Port Fairy district was eminently fitted, and at that time—how different from the present!—sheep and wool were rather at a discount. Of course, some men had sufficient foresight and shrewdness to back the golden fleece, but their experiences were not encouraging.
The heavy herbage and rich soil of the West tended lamentably to foot-rot. The flocks seemed to be in a state of chronic lameness. The malady either reduced wool increase and condition to a point considerably below zero, or necessitated the employment of such a number of hands in applying bluestone and butyr of antimony (the remedies of the period), that the shearing subsidy was considerably encroached on.
Then there was "Scab"—word of dread and hatefulness, herald of ruin and loss, of endless torment to all concerned, of medicated dippings, dressings,
