subs. (Australian).—In Victoria and New South Wales a small farmer or selector. A term of contempt used by large holders in describing agricultural squatters with small capital. [Probably an allusion to their numbers: a comparing to the rush for land, the swooping of cockatoos in myriads in new sown corn.]
1865. H. KINGSLEY, The Hillyars and the Burtons, ch. lx. The small farmers [in Australian wool districts] contemptuously called COCKATOOS are the fathers of fire, the inventors of scab, the seducers of bush-hands for haymaking and harvesting [and many other heinous crimes].
1886. G. SUTHERLAND, Australia, p. 64. The shepherd king tries to steal a march upon the poor ‘COCKATOO,’ as he contemptuously calls the small farmer.
1887. G. A. SALA, in Illustrated London News, 12 March, 282, col. 2. I venture to differ from my correspondent when, in telling me that ‘cocky’ is Australian argot for a small farmer, adds, ‘by-the-by, you never hear the word “farmer” over there … many scores of times at the Antipodes I have heard agriculturists, whose holdings were small, spoken of, not as “cockies” but as “COCKATOO FARMERS.”’
