The immediate effect of the exclusive policy adopted by the pastoralists, however, was to force many selectors to take up land in dense scrubs on steep mountain slopes and in river pockets which were useless to stockowners. They had literally to hew their homes out of the jungle. Having no roads, they were thrown upon their own resources, and were obliged to live very largely upon the produce of their farms. Erecting a rude makeshift fence around a clearing of a few acres, the "cocky" or "cockatoo farmer," as he was contemptuously styled by those who regarded him as an interloper, planted maize and pumpkins among the remains of the scrub. Despite the ravages of bird and beast, he persevered, until at last success began to crown his efforts. A cow or two provided him with milk and butter, any surplus butter being sold to the storekeepers in the towns which quickly followed in the wake of settlement. Lucerne, sorghum, and other fodder crops formed part of his husbandry, live stock multiplied, and thus commenced that system of mixed farming to which thousands of the farmers of Queensland owe their prosperity. The coming of neighbours and the making of roads rendered life less lonely. With increasing prosperity, improved implements and methods were adopted. The plough succeeded the hoe; the harvester or the reaper and binder took the place of sickle and scythe; and the slab humpy or bark hut gave way to the comfortable farmhouse. Though these early selectors were driven into almost inaccessible scrub, they were at least within the region of heavy rainfall, and, even where some distance from permanent streams, suffered little from drought. Settlers who went over the Range, profiting by the experience of the pastoral pioneers regarding the vicissitudes of climate, avoided the mistake of relying upon a single crop, or, to use a homely phrase, of putting all their eggs in one basket--an error which brought ruin to thousands upon thousands of the people who, between thirty and forty years ago, flocked from the Atlantic seaboard to the arid regions of America, west of the Mississippi. Mixed farming became the general rule on the further side of the Main Range, so that, if wheat and maize failed, the farmers had their flocks and herds and their shearing cheques as a standby until the next harvest was garnered.