The following essay is one I did in Australian Economic History 101, Probably the most enjoyable essay I have ever done. The basic idea was that you had to pretend you were a sheep farmer in the early 1800's and decide whether you were farming your sheep for mutton or wool. I think I got a B+ for this assignment.

The year is 1828, and my name is Frank Smith. The following is a journal of my first five years as a shepherd in the Hunter Valley, near the port of Newcastle, Australia. I am a free settler to the region and have been mostly financed by my uncle The Earl of Wistershere. He gave me the land, and financed my sea voyage to Australia as a gift for my 25th birthday. It was recommended by my uncle (who is very rich due to his wise business decisions) that I invest most of my time in wool instead of mutton. He believes that there is no future in breeding my sheep for meat as he believes that the prices for meat are very low and they will probably get lower as more and more shepherds start breeding for meat. He also speculates that eventually the convicts will stop being transported into NSW and that there will be no need for the Commissariat to buy as much beef and mutton off the settlers as they are presently doing so. Throughout my journal I have made comparisons on the profits I would have made if I had decided to breed my sheep for meat as compared to the wool. There is also a budget plan for both methods which can be referred to.

January 1824

This is a reflection back on my first year (1823) as a shepherd in the Hunter Valley. I have named my property “Wallaroo” which I am told is the word for luck in language of the aboriginal people that originate from this area. With me I brought 10 convicts (8 male and 2 female) as well as 200 ewes and 2 rams which I had purchased in Sydney. I also brought with my supplies which will hopefully last a year. I plan to make yearly trips to Sydney for more supplies.

The year was a tough, hectic but pretty much successful one. I was able to accomplish what I set out to do, and I have learnt a lot of things a long the way. One of the first things I have learnt is to keep a positive outlook on it all. The life here is rough, and I expected it to be, but I can’t give up. This is my chance to prove I am something, and I will do it no matter what.

We arrived with tents as temporary shelter, so one of the first things I did was start work on building more permanent shelter for myself, the convicts and the other labourers I have employed. I constructed the housing out of wood that I found to be quite plentiful on Wallaroo. Luckily a few of my convicts have experience in construction, so there was no need to employ outside aid. I have employed the aid of Frank, an young and well built English lad to oversee the convicts for me. I have it on record that most of them had been transported for petty thefts, but I still wanted someone to oversee them. This was no problems from any of the convicts, and they have all been co-operative and very willing to do as asked. I think the trick is to treat them as you would treat a normal employee, as a real person instead of a slave. I am paying for full upkeep including food and shelter of the convicts which is roughly which was one of the regulations of being granted them, and I am doing the same for my labourers. This is costing me roughly $550 a year.

The sheep bred quite well this year, although I lost a few of them on the trip here from Sydney, but apart from that I did alright considering. It is estimated that my profit for the year will be about $450 according to the last known prices from England. I won’t be receiving this for another few years probably as it takes time to for the wool to get to England, to sell the wool on the market and for my profit to reach me.

I purchased 4 pure bred merino rams from the “Marquis of Londonerry’s” flocks which were put of for sale in 1822. All of them were bought and sent to Sydney. I had them sent by sea from Sydney and collected them at the Newcastle port. My reasoning for this purchase which seems quite extreme is that I did not have enough crossbreed rams to service my ewes. Before the breeding season I had a letter from my German friend Hans Kriener (a German flockmaster who studied at University and is very knowledgeable on animal husbandry and selective breeding) recommending that if I wish to improve the wool quality of my sheep for wool I need to breed them only with pure bread merinos. So as soon as I got here I sold my crossbreed rams to my closest neighbor John Halifax and bought the 4 pure bred merinos. Merino sheep have finer wool which is worth more money on the English market.

In addition to having Frank oversee the convicts I have employed a Scottish lad by the name of Thomas McGuire. He was raised on a farm in Scotland and comes from a long line of shepherds. He has been a great asset in helping me set up the farm, and look after the sheep. He brought with him 2 of his own sheep dogs – one a female and one a male. They bred through the year and I purchased the two puppies off him at $5 each. (There are not a lot of dogs around to buy so they are quite expensive)

We have set up a night watch over the sheep which Thomas rotates with the male convicts. During the night they have watch boxes set up in the pastures so they can be close to the sheep. There have been a few dingoes spotted, but they haven’t come too close to the sheep. The gun I purchased with my last import of supplies just might come in handy eventually.

Expenses were very high this year, but I expect that to decrease in the following years. The main expense was obviously the extra merino rams I purchased. Freight of the wool did not cost too much, but my Agent (John Sloper – also agent to John Macarthur) in England will be taking 10% of my earnings of the year. I brought some money and supplies with me, but I still needed to make a loan from the Bank of New South Wales before I came up here. I have saved myself a little bit in expenses by promising Thomas and Frank both 5% each of the lambs born so they can start there own flocks. They will run with my sheep on my land until both of them feel they have enough of their own and they will leave and purchase their own land.

If I had wanted to breed my sheep for meat purposes I would not have made the same decision to purchase the merino rams. This is because merino sheep have less meat on them as they are smaller and the meat is not as good as that of crossbreeds. I also would not have killed any of my sheep this year as I would have wanted to expand my flocks for a few years before killing them so reproductive rates would still be high enough to keep the flocks at a decent size. Meat prices at the moment are still very low at 15 cents a pound. I could always fall back on meat if wool prices fall, but at the moment I am relying on wool prices to stay high. If I don’t make the profits I expect I will change over to meat for a little while because it is sold to the Commissariat and you receive your money a lot sooner then you would from wool as it does not have to go to England to be sold.

January 1825

This section is a reflection back on the year 1824. This year my profits are estimated to be around $1200 which is a great improvement on last year due to there being quite an increase in the flock size. I now have 430 sheep all up, 160 adult ewes and 270 lambs. The weather this year as with last year has been very favourable, and there still has been no reports of any diseases such as scab.

Thomas has recommended that it might be worth growing my own tobacco (a small trial crop) to add to a mixture consisting of nicotine and turpentine which is used to treat scab. I did decide on growing Tobacco as Thomas recommended just incase the sheep do get scab. If I don’t ever use it I am sure I can sell it to the colony for smoking purposes.

I invested in 3 more merinos as Thomas tells me that on ram can only service 45 ewes a season, and I don’t want too much inbreeding of the sheep. I purchased these at the Paramatta Fair, when I made a trip to Sydney to get more supplies. While I was there I ran into William Dutton an old friend of mine from the schooling days. He has become quite an export pasturealist especially concerning merinos, and aided me in my decisions.

Once again, if I had been breeding my sheep for meat purposes I would not have bought the merinos I did this buy. The prices have not changed as there is a still constant inflow of convicts which the Commissariat provides rations for, and therefore a constant supply of meat is needed. It is still being bought at 15 cents a pound, and if I were in the position to sell my sheep for meat I do not believe I would have done it this year as once again my flocks still are not big enough. I would want at least 600 sheep if I were to use them for meat.

January 1826

This section is a reflection back on the year 1825. This year was a very good year all round. The sheep casualties were there lowest ever, and profits are estimated to be very high at $1700. The flock has now reached over 600 sheep altogether. The tobacco I planted last year was grown successfully, although it is not of high quality it can still be used for the purpose it was grown for. I will continue planting a small crop of it yearly as it is not a high expense to the farm.

Meat prices still have not changed dramatically, and the demand is still pretty constant. Wool prices on the other hand (especially for fine wool) seem to be on the increase. I did have a letter from my agent John Sloper in England with the returns I received from my shipment of wool in 1823. He is speculating that 1826 will see the end of the boom for wool in England due to the slowly increasing demand for cotton. It would be devastating if prices fell very low, but at the same time I think I could pull through it. The price for fine wool is much higher then the price for courser wool, and each year the wool my sheep are producing is getting finer and finer.

Due to the great increase in numbers of sheep this year would have been a great year to start killing my sheep and selling the meat. There is quite a demand from the convict settlement in Port McQuarie for meat, but I have decided to keep with wool as I have already invested so much money and time in increasing the quality of the wool my sheep produce. I am also still under the same belief as my uncle that this demand for meat will not always be as high as it currently is.

January 1827

This section is a reflection back on the year 1826. As speculated by John Sloper the prices took a big nose dive this year, and the demand for wool in England is fast decreasing. I probably will not get near as much money for my wool as I have in previous year, not only because of this nose dive in prices, but also because I have lost a lot of my sheep to disease. It has been an extremely wet year and footrot which is nearly untreatable became a big problem. Also some my sheep caught scab. Luckily I had a supply of turpentine and nicotine (from my tobacco plant) to treat the sheep, and I was able to quarantine those infected, and move the other sheep to other pastures before it really broke out. Overall though, I still had a lot of casualties, especially with the lambs.

I wrote to Hans asking his view on the current situation, and he agreed that I have made the right decision by improving the quality of my flocks. If I had the money I would buy some more merino rams, but as it is I am still heavily in debt and cannot afford to buy more. This problem was solved by going to a nearby shepherd by the name of Michael Johnson who was prepared to swap merino rams. I gave him two of mine, and he gave me two of his. This will hopefully aid us both as there will be less inbreeding in our flocks. His rams are of equally good quality.

This is probably the first year I have wished that I was in the meat industry instead of the wool industry. All I can really do is hope things do not get worse, and also hope that the price and demand of fine wool does not drop too much on the English market. If worse comes to worse I can still use my sheep for meat purposes, but hopefully I will not need to do this.

January 1828

This section is a reflection back on the year 1827. Once again things have become worse over this year. Luckily Wallaroo is situated about 20 miles inland and the fires that ravished the coastline did not reach me. The smoke was pretty thick for a while though and actually killed a few of my sheep. This as well as reoccurring cases of scab made a lot of casualties in my flock again. The numbers have diminished to just 300 sheep. Luckily I am better off then a lot of my neighbors who were not prepared for any of this to happen. Due to this my profits will be falling too.

The quality of my wool was the best this year. I showed samples of it at the Paramatta Fair and a small write up was in the Sydney Morning Herald concerning the “fine quality” of my wool. Hopefully this will get potential buyers in England more interested, and the free advertisement will increase demand. If the next year is a dry as this year has been I may consider buying some of Michael Johnson’s sheep. They don’t produce as fine wool as my sheep, but from the rumors I have heard he is going bankrupt. Luckily I was here in the good years and able to make some profit before things turned for the worse. The meat market is not even an option for me now. I shall stay with wool no matter what happens now.