Sheep brands

Another example of the fascinating documents you come across in family history research.
 
This is from a supplement to the NSW Government Gazette published on 21 July 1891. There are 30 pages of it and you could buy it for 6d.
 
At first I thought it was a list of all the sheep brands registered in NSW. But it’s not. It’s a list of ‘Sheep Brands and Ear Marks [that] have been cancelled, the proprietors thereof being deceased, or having sold and left their holdings’. Does that suggest a lot of turnover among sheep farmers?
 
As a onetime employee of the NSW Government, I was also interested in the glimpses this document gives of beaucracratic and legislative organisation in those days. The list was made under the Diseases in Sheep Acts Amendment Act of 1878. Odd: you would think it was more about diseases in owners? And publication of the list was authorised by the Chief Inspector of Stock in the Stock Branch, which was part of the Department of Mines. Really?