Our largest source of income just at present is the herd. First there is the dairy business, which I have already spoken of. The milch cows keep on the clearings, or near to them, and soon get tame enough to come up when called. They are brought to the bails morning and evening, fastened up, and given a feed of koraka. All cattle are very fond of the leaves of the koraka-tree, and it is used to entice them with when that is required. Of course, it will be understood that, as there is no cold winter here, we do not require to house our cattle at any season, nor do we need to provide them with hay or root food. They find their own living all the year round, either in the bush or on the clearings, and the most we do is to give them maize-stalks when we have some.
The bulk of the herd, numbering now upwards of two hundred head, runs free in the bush. There is no native grass, as I have before mentioned, and the feed is tree leafage. This suits the cattle, and they fatten well upon it, though not turning out very large beasts. But the pasture-fed cattle of the South are not in prime condition for market during the dry-season. Our bush-raised beasts are, and this gives us a pull.
The best part of one man's time is always taken up with stock duty. To keep the cattle from becoming unmanageably wild, and from getting too far away, they must be constantly driven up to the yards, and accustomed to discipline. It is our practice to give every beast a night in the yard at least once in six weeks. And it is also essentially necessary to keep an eye on calving cows, for if the calf is not brought up at once, branded, and so forth, it will be sure to turn out wild and a rusher, and then it would have to be shot at once, to prevent its infecting other beasts.
Of course, we are all stockmen more or less; but Old Colonial and the Saint are the chief hands at this work. The latter gentleman did not receive his appellation, as might be supposed, from any relations which his character bore to it. He was intended for the Church at one time; but, perhaps, the Church is to be congratulated in that it did not receive him. There is nothing mild or milk-and-watery about our Saint, though he has his own peculiar moral code, and is strictly scrupulous in its observance.