27 February 1872

Next day, Feb 27^th Col. Whitmore and I rode over part of his run, and sowed “Brogden Hill” with grass seed. The plan is first to burn down the fern, then turn on sheep to eat down the young shoots, which kills the roots, and then to sow the seed. – It would have been better if ploughed, but on so large a run as Col. Whitmore’s it would require a long time. 100,000 acres is a large tract of land to manipulate. In the afternoon we went over another wild part, pig-hunting, query Smith accompanying us. We soon caught sight of one animal, and away we went with the bull dogs full cry page 81 Dunny riding Mrs Whitmore’s favourite Black, which gets the 2^nd place in the chase. During the run Smith’s horse all at once got into very soft ground, and horse and rider had a regular good “perle”, Dunny nearly following suit. This lost us our game for a while, but we ran on to the tee tree Scrub and soon heard squeaking, - quickly trying our horses and brushing thro’ down a steep place, sure enough we saw that the dogs had pinned “piggy” by his ears, and he was soon despatched. Not long after in galloping thro’ the fern and dashing as well as we could over the rough ground, we saw five pigs, but only got a little squealer. The dogs had gone in pursuit, but as they made no noise, and did not answer our calls, it was thought they had got hold of an old boar. We had been led on some distance, when we caught sight of another, which after a sharp run, we killed, taking the hams home. Day was just declining, and as we were coming over a ridge the Col. caught sight of a large pig. He had seen us and was moving but slowly; we sent on the dogs and rode as hard as we could gallop. The brute soon discovered that he had better go quickly, and had made a good distance towards the rough precipices where the others were, when we put on a furious spurt, and the dogs turning short seized him after a hot and hard chase – to finish him soon was done. He was a boar of fair size; we had quite a job to get his jaws for the tusks, but managed to obtain them. Another hearty meal, a chat, and smoke – which ends a happy day.