Working Life in the 1890's Australia

Ok this week we are looking at farming in the 1890’s Australia with the invention of milking machines dairy farmers were encouraged to use these machines although common sense tells me that not all would have been keen on trusting some machine to milk their beloved cows. Wheat farmers had the new McKay Sunshine Harvesters.

Also, by this time an export trade in meat was developing, this resulted in both New South Wales & Queensland increasing acreages being devoted to cattle and sheep grazing for meat production. The great pastoral companies which were big business knew that their fat lambs and prime beef would be frozen and exported in the new refrigerated ships that ran between Australia and the British Isles.

However, there were still many farmers on small selections that still struggled with fighting the land and seasons. Most were lucky to own more then one horse and most of the work was done by the family members. It wasn’t uncommon for these settlers to find once they cleared the land it wasn’t any good for agriculture.

There were many years of drought which didn’t help and from 1880 to 1886 many areas suffered from drought, in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. Then again between 1895 and 1903 most of Australia experienced drought it was the worst drought in recorded history at that time.

This saw the sheep population cut in half and cattle numbers down around 40 per cent. Of course, wheat yields were also affected dropping from around 8 bushels per acre to only 2.4 bushels per acre in 1902.