Lest the term “run” should not be clearly intelligible to some non-Australian readers, it may be here observed, that it is an extensive tract of country devoted to sheep-breeding, and held on lease from the Government for a term of years. Its chief excellencies are, of course, pasturage and good water; moreover, it must, at least, be capable of carrying 4,000 sheep, or an equivalent number of cattle—extra £2 10_s._ per annum for every additional 1,000 sheep, or proportionate increase of cattle.
For this run, the owner takes out a licence of occupation, at a rental proportioned to the number of sheep or cattle which the district is calculated to support. The capabilities of the location are estimated by a Commissioner of Crown Lands, and a half-yearly assessment is also laid on all the live stock at the station—a halfpenny per head for sheep, three halfpence for cattle, and threepence for horses. Formerly, the holder had the option of purchasing, at any time, the entire run at twenty shillings an acre; but this law has now been altered and, as some think, amended, by the impossibility, under the present system, of the existence of a race of licensed settlers, or leaseholders, in perpetuity, who might have been likened to the Crown feudatories of the middle ages, and paid an annual quit-rent for their possessions. These landholders are termed in Australia, “squatters.” In these runs, which sometimes equal in extent an English county, and usually about the centre or frontage, stands the homestead, a rude wooden building, with a garden, stores, offices, and adjacent stock or farm yards. A spacious grass paddock, and some smaller ones for tillage, all enclosed with a post and rail fence, with a large shed for shearing the sheep and storing the wool, are also necessary adjuncts of the head-quarters. The two great epochs of pastoral life are the lambing and shearing seasons; the latter duty having been performed annually by a distinct class of persons, who went about from station to station to be hired for this work. Since the gold discoveries, however, this duty has been in some degree performed, with considerable difficulty at times, by the settlers themselves. Independent of the head-quarters or head-stations on these runs, there are usually what are called “out-stations,” with small flocks of from 500 to 1500 sheep, in charge of two shepherds and a hut-keeper; who, whilst the former tend the sheep, looks after the yards, cooks the victuals, and watches by night against the attacks of the “dingo,” or wild dog—the most destructive of Australian vermin.