For the visitor to Nangutta Station the drive in from the Imlay Road is a long one through thick bush and scrub. You think you are in the middle of nowhere and if you will ever get to the station. Crossing Nangutta creek and with the station opening up before you it is a sight to remember. The escarpment spreads out before you and along with the wonderful view, there is an atmosphere that is just as obvious.
The sandstone escarpment was under the sea in the Devonian Period, 417 to 354 million years ago. This place is ancient. The layers of sandstone in the escarpment draw the eye and imagination. You have to see it to feel it.

** From early references the original spelling is Nangutta.

Sandstone escarpment at Nungatta Station photo K. Clery

Calvert, Samuel, 1828-1913, engraver. Shows farm with creek in foreground and Nangutta Peak in background. State Library of Victoria

NANGUTTA S T A T I ON, N. S. WALES.
Nangutta station is situated in the Monaro district, closely approximating to the Great Dividing Range, and lying near to the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria. Monaro is a pastoral district, having an area of 8335 square miles, of which 10,119 acres are under cultivation. The Delegete, Bendoc and Eucumbene gold-fields are within its boundaries, the entire district being traversed by lofty mountain ranges and deep gullies, in which lie vast stores of undeveloped mineral wealth. The geological formation is one made up of various granite rocks, irregularly interpolating and disturbing quartz bearing slate of various colors and degrees of hardness, of which the lower portions are partly overflowed by trappean eruptions. The area of the Nangutta station is 32,000 acres, and the grazing capability is reckoned at 4000 sheep. Our engraving gives a correct view of the home station, with Nangutta Creek in the fore ground, and the mountain called Nangutta Peak in the distance.

"Not so very long ago we had a traveller, and Englishman, he had been bushed without a blanket, he got here in the morning, it was just beginning to rain and kept wet for two days, which rose the creeks a good bit. This traveller appeared a decent sort of fellow, a painter by trade, and was very good at taking pencil sketches. He went on to a ridge one day and took a sketch of the place, he told us when he got to where he could get larger paper he would copy it and send it to us by post. He stayed here until the creeks went down, he was here a week. Often when I have thought tramps were in need I have given them two or three shillings when leaving. Now I thought this Mr. Painter's funds were very low, so I gave him four shillings when he was leaving and sent a lad with him for fourteen miles so as he would have a horse over all the creeks on his way to Bombala......But he forgot to send the sketch.........I heard of him some time after, he was then in the lockup at Bedoc, he may have gone there to take a sketch of the cell."

Excerpt from "Leaves From My Life" by Alexander Weatherhead.

The information below has been largely collected and researched by Judy Winters in her study "NUNGATTA SOUTH" for National Parks & Wildlife Service of New South Wales 2001. Where I have used excerpts from this document the source is noted. I gratefully acknowledge and appreciate her permission to use this material.
K. Clery

Below: Excerpt from 'Leases Granted September 29, 1848'

Excerpts below from "NUNGATTA SOUTH" by Judy Winters

TIME LINE - NANGUTTA/NUNGATTA STATION

For centuries before white man ventured into the wild unexplored ranges of the far south eastern corner of NSW and the north east of what was to later become the State of Victoria, those lands were the territory of the Australian Aborigine.
European records tell us that the inhabitants of the area around Nangutta were a conglomerate group known as the Bidewell/Bidwell, in one place this has been translated as "Scrub Dwellers".
Nungatta means "A place of mourning" and the Aborigines who lived in this area were supposed, by A.W.Howitt (Police Magistrate, Gippsland 1863) to be refugees from surrounding tribes, speaking a mixture of adjacent languages.
G.A.Robinson the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Port Phillip from 1839 to 1849 was widely regarded as being the most careful and accurate reporter of aboriginal named groups, customs, language and place names for far south eastern Australia.
It is from Robinson's journal that the spelling and pronunciation of "Nangutta" as opposed to the current usage, "Nungatta".
Robinson's diary entry dated, Tuesday 14th August, 1844 says:

"Toby (an English speaking guide or servant) furnished me with a number of words of the Twofold Bay language, see vocabulary...Nan.gut.er: Campbell's station 12 miles north of Wongererbul"

On Friday 16th August, 1844 Robinson was staying that evening at Oswald Brierly's home as accommodations on shore were much more primitive. The entry in Robinson's diary for that day says: Party Maneroo Blacks came on board "Wanderer", he then recorded their names and the tribe from which they came. The names include: Ny.an.go, Nyangutter.
The diary entry ends:

"The above came on board 'Wanderer' and their names were entered in the visitor book, I was present."

NATIVE HUNTERS. Date(s) of creation: February 28, 1870. print : wood engraving. State Library of Victoria

Robinson makes note in July 1844 that:

"The extensive tract of Country between Buchan and Twofold Bay is very thinly inhabited by Aborigines. An extermination warfare by the Twofold Bay Natives and their allies has nearly depopulated the country, happily their feuds have ceased and the few that remain live in peace."

James O'Rourke a north east Gippsland pastoralist, gave the following account:

"A number of New South Wales blackfellows came over into Victoria as far as Buchan. The New South Wales blacks were never very bad - nothing like the Victoria blacks who were very troublesome around Cape Everard to the head of the Delegate River. This used to be called Bidwell and the Bidwell blacks were a wild lot. They would make raids and steal and maim, and were a terror to everyone...I never heard that they (pastoralists) shot any of them but they gave them a great scaring. (O'Rourke 1910).

Oral histories tell of the extermination of whole groups of aboriginal people at Nungatta and Tubbut by poison and gun shot. It have also been claimed that more Aboriginal people were killed by blankets than by poison, guns or white man's diseases because the blankets replaced the usual animal skin coverings used by Aboriginals and proved hopelessly inadequate for the purpose.

Excerpts above from "NUNGATTA SOUTH" by Judy Winters.

(In my own research, I have interviewed several of the Oldies around this district who related rumours and stories they had heard as youngsters about the shooting of Aborigines at Nungatta. But it seems it was not uncommon to do this as one elderly local said it was a pity that I hadn't been here when old Alf Alexander was living at Pericoe Station as he used to go out shooting Aborigines after church on Sundays. K. Clery)

Excerpts below from "NUNGATTA SOUTH" by Judy Winters.

Joseph Lingard was transported to New South Wales and arrived in Sydney in May, 1837. His sentence was completed at "Cambelong" on the Maneroo and he set out with a companion (seemingly an assigned convict) to walk through the largely unexplored country between that place and "Genore" (Genoa) a Station under the control of one Captain Stephenson.

Lingard's aim was to trap and kill small mammals and birds. He then preserved their skins and pelts with the stated aim of returning to England with the specimens. No explanation of this activity was offered in his story.

His story gives details of the country he encountered on his journey and particularly mentions the area around Nangutta Station.

"Stephenson had farmed a station near Cape Howe; between Twofold Bay and Ninety mile Beach; he and his family had been there about three months. Mr. Stephenson invited me down there....I told him I would accept his invitation.

We had nothing to go by but a mark-tree line for the whole ninety miles. There was nothing but mountains all the way and so full of timber that we could scarcely get through. The first of these mountains we came to was Morris's Mountain (Nangutta Mountain), it was twelve miles of a journey over it.................

................There was timber here of an almost incredible size. We reached a small river, we had been informed that if we followed its margin we should find a station....about half an hour before sundown we came in sight of it.......One Weatherhead kept this station as overseer...it was a cattle station...We staid (sic) all night...the mistress....said we had better stay another day...as the way we had to go was a very rough one...

I saw trees there, I should think one hundred and twenty yards high and twenty five feet through the ball; the natives call the trees stringy-bark or messmate. I saw logs tumbled down on their sides and mouldering, sunk perhaps two feet in the ground, yet I could not touch the height of the ball with my stretched-out arm...........

Next morning we loaded and commenced our journey, the mistress sent the man with us about seven miles, through great forests of timber, with ranges of mountains on each side.....

Lingard and his offsider made it to "Genore" and after ten weeks of shooting and trapping, he began his return journey to the Manaroo by joining with the stockkeeper of Genore Station who was heading to Nan-gutty for some calves. Their first day's effort brought them

..............to Wong-a-ra-bar....the journey was about sixteen miles.....(we) made ready for our journey to Nan-gutty about seventeen miles off; the way lay over mountains, ranges, creeks and vallies (sic) covered with timber, vines and shrubs of all descriptions. With great exertion we got to Nan-gutty that evening. We stopped here all night....we made a start for Bondi, the foot of the mountain at the further end of the Manara plains; this journey was about eighteen miles; we had Morris Mountains to cross, which was twelve miles over, only a mark-tree line and a very rugged journey it was...."

Lingard eventually left Australia in January 1844,having secured a position as assistant to the cook on board "Aden". He mentions that part of the cargo being sent "home" was bark. The bark of the Australian Wattle was, and still is, used in the tanning of hides and the gathering of that bark was to be part of the economic structure of Nangutta for very many years.

Alexander Weatherhead died at Nangutta 1901		Thought to be: Isabella Stevenson daughter of Alexander Snr. 1892		William Weatherhead and family Back row: Mrs Weatherhead, William jnr and probably Maud. Front row: William nursing Annie, Vera, Edgar and probably Eunice. Wife Annie (nee) Black 1899

Excerpts from "NUNGATTA SOUTH" by Judy Winters continues..

In 1840 Nungatta was sold to Abercrombie & Co. Alexander Weatherhead was engaged for two years to work the station.
When W.T.Morris sold Nangutta, he recommended to the new owners one Alexander Weatherhead who had been in his employ at his Gundary holdings a few years previously. Weatherhead was taken on by Abercrombie& Company as Overseer and the following is extracted from Weatherhead's own writing in "Leaves From My Life":

"Now I had to think what would be wanted for Nangutta, there would be very little there, as it had been an outside cattle station, with two men on it.

So I got tin milk dishes, butter kegs, tubs, iron pots and other things. Then I had to look for some small craft that was trading along that way, I found there was one going to Broulee soon, her name was the "Ganny", I think not more than twenty tons. I bargained with them to take my family and a good bit of cargo to Twofold Bay, they got a blackfellow for pilot as they did not know where the bay was..."

This pilot was not very efficient as the Fanny missed the entrance to the Bay and there was some dissent among the sailors and the Fanny was to be turned around to go back but bad weather forced them to stand out to sea and by chance the entrance to the Bay was discovered and Weatherhead and his family were eventually landed.

".....and there was soon a little house allotted to us and we thought we were better there than at sea that night, as it did blow a real sou'wester......There was one white woman there a Mrs. Ritchie, her husband had been there as a ship carpenter and had died there.

Well, after a day looking about I started for Nangutta, I got a blackfellow to go with me, we walked up to Towamba that day, the next to Nangutta. When I got there I found two men putting up cow bails and other work, and one man as stockman, there ought to have been another as pack-bullock man and hutkeeper, but he had left. Everything had to be carried on pack bullocks in those day, so after a day the stockman and I started for the bay with two horses and three bullocks.

When we got there we packed up what we thought would be first wanted. Now there was Mrs Weatherhead, three small children and a young girl we brought from Sydney we got on very slowly, and had to camp half way to Towamba, we managed to get to Towamba next day.....the next day we got to Perico....the next day eighteen miles to Nangutta, we managed with a hard tussle.

What would some of the people in London think of our next door neighbour being twelve miles off.....

As we expected two or three more men to get the cattle mustered, we must have more things out from the bay.....Mr Morris and Mr Urquhart came to have the cattle mustered and as there were no paddocks then, as we got the cattle in we had to put a brand on them and let them go again, so as we would know fresh ones from what had been in.......

I saw we would not do much with the dairy that summer, so I did not try to get more men, I thought the best thing I could do was to get the things out from the bay, so I went to work with a will....I broke in two or three young bullocks.....Now I would start on a Monday morning, go to Towamba twenty five miles, the next morning up early, get the bullocks and put the saddles on them,....sixteen miles from there to the bay over very rough country, I would try to get to the bay about the middle of the day......after I got dinner I got the key of the store and got the loads all weighed and strapped. There was lot of clumsy things to go on the quietest bullocks. Next morning get the bullocks into a small yard up the hill from the wharf....had breakfast got the loads in and got to Towamba, the next day home.....I think it was eighteen times I went to the bay, and walked all they way.....I think that before anyone would do the same work now there would be a strike.

I had a visit from Mr Campbell who was then superintendent at Gundary, I got him to send me a couple of men, so we got a bit of wheat in and other work done through the winter. In the Spring we started to make a bit of butter, it had to be carried to the bay on bullocks, but I had a man to go with me now. It generally sold pretty well in Sydney. There was not much demand for cattle, the third summer I was here we took five hundred, a mixed lot to Bergalia, the Company had bought that place, but I began to think things were not going on well, so I gave my notice to leave."

Weatherhead took a trip to Sydney that winter and while there discovered that Abercrombie & Co. had failed and he then had difficulty in getting the one hundred pounds owing to him. He finally took its value in goods from their store.

"After I got back (from Sydney), we soon left Nangutta, we first went to Walagara (sic), near the junction of the Timbillica and the Genoa Rivers.....We soon after that shifted to Timbillica, put up two large bark huts and had to live in them awhile until I got a house up but we were quite content. The spring was coming in now. The Mrs milked the cows in a make-shift yard, so that I could keep going to get the house and a small dairy up.....after I got the house up I began to put up yards.....I was never one of the unemployed......We did most of our own work, and never went into debt, and I have stuck to the same thing all along, out of debt and danger.."

Weatherhead was no doubt a very hard worker. His house, yards and all buildings in this place were totally destroyed by flood and he then set to work to rebuild everything on higher ground only to have it all washed away again two years later. Of course he re-built!

1843/44 Governor Gipps legalises squatting

1843 Nungatta sold to Campbell & Co.

Alexander Weatherhead continues:

"Nangutta, after I left it, was kept on in the name of Campbell & Co., but it had to be sold; Mr P. Imlay bought it. Fifteen shillings per head for the cattle, and five pounds for the horses, station given in, that was a come down. "Mr P. Imlay came round our way, he was buying stores to fatten for boiling down. I sold what bullocks I had......the price was fifteen shillings per head delivered at Bega.....Then the next thing there was some talk of gold being found, so there was soon a prospect of better times. The next buyer of store bullocks was a gentleman from Gippsland...his price was two pounds ten shillings per head but....help him to Gippsland with them, he tried hard to get mine, but I would not deal. It was as well I did not for the next year I got one pound per head more and delivered them only twenty miles from home." (Yambulla Gold Fields???)

"The gold soon made a great difference in many ways.....there got to be a great demand for working bullocks, I sold some at long prices."

1846 Proclamation of County Auckland and Dampier, with related parishes. Parish of Nangutta created.

1847 An order of Council requires persons to apply for leases of the runs of Crown Land which results in leases being granted in Bega Valley in 1848, 1858. These were renewable leases for up to 14 years and squatters in possession were allowed to apply for leasehold to the runs, without competition. Crown Lands Occupations acts then reduces existing leases to five years however if there were improvements on the land the leaseholder was entitled to pre emptive rights to that portion of land.

1847 Nungatta sold to Imlay Brothers. Extract from "Leaves From My Life" by A. Weatherhead states:

"I said further back that Mr. P. Imlay bought Nangutta, he kept it for a few years, but never made much out of it. Cattle being at a low price, they were neglected and went wild. When he sold there was some mismanagement....Imlay was afraid of a lawsuit and agreed to take one thousand pound as a lump sum for everything. The buyers, Melbourne men did well by it, they took a good lot of cattle off it and sold them in Melbourne at a good price, then sold out for five thousand pounds. The buyer, whose name was Sullivan thought he could pay it off with cattle....but I knew he had made a bad job of it...I told him when he wanted to sell Nangutta I might give him a bid

...he had two years....then came to me to let me know he wanted to sell Nangutta. He wanted one thousand pounds for the goodwill of the station, I offered him eight hundred and let him know I would give no more.

At the end of three weeks, he came back and took my offer, half cash, the other half when the place transferred to me, when I heard that was done, I went to Bombala to see the Commissioner. I found then the rent had increased from thirty to eighty pounds. I got one hundred and fifty pounds for the place I was leaving....Well, there was one blessing, I was sure of constant work for a long time.

There was a large bush paddock, everything else was a wreck, not even a bit of garden, and not a hut, I wont say house, fit to live in. I added a bit to one old thing do do us for a while, then I got two sawyers and a carpenter, and got a decent house up. ....I bought the brand of the cattle and horses for thirty-five pounds from Mr Sullivan, what were left were very wild. We got a good few cattle, but it was rough work, one horse was gored to death, another was ruptured with a horn. We got some of the horses, but there is a great deal of danger in going after wild horses in rough country, and often getting some of our good horses lamed, so we found it was best to shoot them. There is a great deal of danger in going after wild horses in rough country....so we found it best to shoot them.

Nangutta was an out of the way place and is yet. People say well, you are well off in some ways...but...there are other troubles, if there is children to go to school we must have our own school master; or if we required a doctor, say four visits the bill would come in for fifty pounds. Then our nearest Post Office was twenty miles; and we have kept our own roads. I have never asked the Government for one shilling, so I have not been a troublesome subject. Then we have always kept an open house for all callers, some will say you wont have many in such an out of the way place. A few years ago there were two Melbourne gentlemen came here one afternoon, they thought we would not be troubled with many callers, but before night they thought otherwise, as there were four more for a night's quarters. After that some of the family kept an account for twelve months, and there was one short of four hundred in the year, but there was no account of meals given away. I then kept an account for one month, and there were 38 callers and 82 meals, most of them stay all night, some of them thankful, some not."
End of excerpts from "NUNGATTA SOUTH" by Judy Winters 2001

Further excerpt from "Leaves From My Life" by Alexander Weatherhead

"I think it was in 1868 I began to buy land over on the Bega side. I bought from four or five different people until I got towards thirteen hundred acres, that is all freehold now. Well, ......we had a daughter married over on that side, I used to ride over there now and then, sometimes drive over and take Mrs.Weatherhead with me. To drive over at that time was not a pleasure trip, as the roads were very bad. If it happened to be a wet season all of the way from Bombala to the top of the mountain was little better than a bog, and there were plenty other places not much better. At one time when we were over it came on very wet, there were two or three floods one after another, we were six weeks from home that time. .... I found the Box range very bad, great ruts washed in it, and other places very bad. Before we got to Rocky Hall Mrs. Weatherhead got pitched out, it was a heavy waggonette we had, she went between the wheels, one of the hind wheels went over her back, and her face got bruised. She got up quick told me I had killer her, then laid down again. Was she Irish? Oh no, she belonged to the neighborhood of Canny, Newcastle. I could not get out (of the wagon) quickly enough, when I tried to steady the horses one of them made a bound and broke a swingle-tree, but I got them to a fence on one side of the road, and tied them up, it was a good while before she could get over it."

They made them tough in those days as they had to be, particularly the women who had many roles: wives, mothers, teachers, seamstresses, cooks and general hands when needed. Surviving childbirth in these remote places was not guaranteed.

Nungatta Cemetery - Alexander Weatherhead's headstone on right	Nungatta Cemetery

Alexander Weatherhead's headstone

'Australian Town & Country' December 9, 1871
A TOUR TO THE SOUTH
by Our Special Correspondent.

The Border Land, on the Southern coast of New South Wales, is as little known in some parts as the country about the sources of the Nile.
Considering the rugged character of the district and to the ordinary traveller the almost insurmountable difficulties of access, this can scarcely be wondered at. Passes, defiles, rocks, gullies, hilly and scrubby ground, present themselves in succession to the gaze of the stranger, and unless one has a guide it is utterly impossible to proceed with certainty. Yet far back in some of these wilds, bold and enterprising spirits 'over thirty years ago' found their way, and made homes for themselves and reared large families. To the residence and station of one of these pioneers, I resolved while on a visit to Eden recently, to take a trip and see the surrounding country. Good horses having been procured, the sun had scarcely begun to light up the top of huge Mount Imlay, which rose 3000 feet right before us, when we were in the saddle, and were proceeding under the shades of Rixon's Bower, a short distance from Eden. The first seventeen miles is easily described, along stony and pebbly ground, across gullies, and up watercourses; then over hills, along sidlings, relieved by an occasional oasis, in the form of a patch of rich pasture on an alluvial deposit, and all the time endeavouring to make a circuit of Mount Imlay. Soon after we came to the Towamba, or Kiah River, a fine broad stream, which flows into Twofold Bay. There are a few farms here, a store and post-office, and a good public school, the latter under the able management of Mr. Beer. On the right bank of the Towamba River, is the homestead of the Towamba Station, the property of C.T. Stiles and Co.

Towamba Homestead and bullock wagon. No date

The station has been cut up considerably by free selectors, who have taken most of the choice spots on the river banks, and the population has so much increased that there is a second erected on the station, a few miles higher up, at a place called Burragate, or Pussy Cat.
Being 'on pleasure bent', I diverged a little from the comfortable home station at Towamba, and visited Burragate. The school here is a half-time one, under the charge of Mr. G. D. Riley. It is constructed of sawn timber and shingled, and is a very neat little building. C. T. Stiles Esq., is the only member of the local board, and to him is mainly due the credit of erecting this school. There were sixteen children in attendance, including all on the roll. This is the only school that I have ever visited where the number in attendance was the same as the number on the roll. Though only opened a short time, the children were examined in grammar (including reading, parsing, and analysis) arithmetic and geography. They showed considerable proficiency in these branches; and taking into consideration the fact that they only get half-time instruction, they must be either remarkably intelligent, or the method of instruction must be very good, perhaps both. Besides their good writing, I must not forget to mention that other necessary parts of parental care, school discipline and the children 's welfare, had not been neglected. They were all neatly dressed, and wore boots, and all had clean faces and clean hands.
Under these favourable circumstances, I am tempted to give the names of a few of the scholars whose proficiency was worthy of mention. viz.: - O. Sherwin, W. Robinson, A. Binnie, Alice Sherwin, Sarah Robinson, and Elizabeth Hide.
A few miles from the school there is a grand sight, worth a day's ride. It is a great wall of rock, three miles east of Burragate, and a mile from the Wyndham-road to the Monaro. It forms part of the Jingery mountains, of which Mount Imlay is the highest point. This almost perpendicular wall of rock is calculated to be 1300 feet high, and 900 feet wide. About half way up there is a ledge; and from the highest part there is a waterfall or cascade, which falls on this ledge, where there are four or five perfectly circular wells, filled to the brim with water. The depth of these wells must be very great, for we tried to bottom them with saplings twenty feet long, and did not succeed. There are pipes in the stone, leading from this ledge over to the next, at an equally great depth below, where there is a second well or couldron-shaped indenture in the rock. At one end there is an outlet by which the water escapes down the rocky precipice.
We returned to Towamba from here, passing several free selections on the road. From the station (Towamba) we had a long ride of twenty-four miles, through a country which was as changeable as the climate - summer in the morning and winter in the evening. Between ranges, along cattle tracks, through sterile country, and then wild passes, followed by well-grassed and undulating pastoral land, and at last arrived at an opening where the welcome sounds of human voices struck our ears. This is Nangutta station the property of Mr. Alexander Weatherhead - as bluff, yet genial, and hospitable an old gentleman as there is in the colony. Even before we had introduced ourselves, our horses were taken charge of, and we were welcomed to a comfortable and well-built house, surrounded by flowers and emblossomed in climbers. Such was the spot where Mr. Weatherhead has made his home. The years of toil attendant on the opening of this part of the country must have been very great, but the worthy owner is well repaid.

Original Nungatta Homestead	Nungatta Bake House

New Nangutta Homestead built c.1918

Nangutta is altogether 32,000 acres in extent, and is now a cattle station. The country is principally mountainous, and, therefore, only suitable for pastoral purposes. I was glad to notice the excellent breed of cattle on the station, which is in strange contrast to the mongrel breeds of some parts of the coast, with the exception of those at Towamba, which are mostly very fine. The view from Nangutta House is grand in the extreme. Lofty mountains clad in verdure, east west, north, and south, and winding valleys in the centre of which is a fine stream of water ever flowing, and yielding an abundant supply for the station. All these good things are calculated to make the life of the worthy proprietor and his family a happy one. The business of the station and personal attention to their herds relieve the solitude which might otherwise prevail among this pioneer family. Mr. Weatherhead has reared a goodly number of tall, strapping sons, and fine well-grown daughters; and they, one and all, inherit the same kindly feelings which characterise the father. They are just such people, in fact, as a gifted writer in a recent number of the Town and Country Journal described in the following beautiful lines: -
Strong and active, tough and tireless,
open-hearted kindly souled,
such as poets love to picture in the far off age of gold;

August 28, 1915
'The Southern Record and Advertiser '
LAND FOR SETTLEMENT
The landless dairy farmer is at last going to have a chance to get a home on the South Coast of New South Wales, on one of its most favored properties, as Nangutta is now available, for application by those in need of a good dairying home. The vender has made extensive alterations and has practically exterminated the rabbit. Thirty miles of netting have been erected and useless timber destroyed. The estate has been heavily stocked by starving sheep during the past eight months and these should improve the country for dairying purposes. The land is being sold under Closer Settlement Conditions and the Settler has only to find 5o per cent of the purchase money as a deposit and then has nothing more to pay for two years when an annual payment of 5½ per cent is payable which covers interest and part payment off balance of purchase money. The areas are exceptionally liberal and range from 455 acres to about 700 acres at prices from £3 10s to an average of £4. It is magnificently watered by never-failing running streams and has many miles of rich lucerne and corn flats. Having been occupied by one family for over 60 years, the improvements effected are permanent and the country which was once heavily timbered is now very open and park-like. It is noted for its heavy carrying capacity and for the large number of prime fat cattle that have been reared upon it. Numerous enquiries are to hand by the Vendors from Gipps land, Riverina and other districts, and it will be necessary for applicants to quickly apply if they want a block. The Vendor is erecting a Cheese factory on the property and will also securely fence each farm. The area of Nangutta is 11200 acres and it is divided into 19 farms. A school will be erected on the property and telephone connected. The property com prises the pick of the country for miles round, and has long been the envy of the landless dairy farmer. Eden is 40 miles from boundary, Bombala about 30 miles and Towamba 20 miles. It lies right on the Victorian border and has a rainfall of over 30 inches. Our advice is - go and see it for yourselves, and you will secure a farm.