But they found that it cost more to get the gold than it was worth—it didn’t pay. They didn’t give up, however. They were bound to make their fortunes in one way or another, so they tried another. In the southeastern part of this island was grass land. Grass was good for raising sheep and cattle, but there were no sheepand no cattle. So the Englishmen sent to England for sheep and cattle. But when the sheep and cattle came itwas found that they would not eat the grass—it was not the right kind. And still the Englishmen were not discouraged. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” So they sent back again to England and got good grass seed and planted that. And then at last they did succeed, for the grass grew exceedingly well and before long the sheep and cattle turned out to be a “gold mine,” better even than the gold mines they had expected to find. From the sheep that they raised they got the finest wool in the World—very long and silky.It was shipped to England and other places to make woolen clothing, and Australia is now the greatest wool-raising country. And the cattle grew and prospered, and now frozen beef and mutton are sent back to England, which hasn’t nearly enough beef of its own.
But not long after the sheep and cattle had gotten a good start a peculiar thing happened. An Englishman carried a pair of pet rabbits out to Australia. The pair of rabbits got loose and started to raise families. Now rabbits as well as sheep like grass. But rabbits raise families very, very fast, much faster than sheep orcattle, so before very long there were more rabbits in the country than there were sheep, and there were so many millions of rabbits eating up the grass and running wild over everything that there was not enough grass for the sheep. More rabbits and more rabbits and more rabbits—the people could not get rid of them.

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