Oct., 1907.] I- i nil Convention. Cliamher of .\griciilture . 627 



weaners ; but in the class of countrs just mentioned there is often more or 

 less worm and other troubles natural, to country with reliable rainfall, and 

 when this breed and its crosses are bred with the view to constitution, 

 they will be found to do as well as any other; it is well known that 

 robust-shaped good constitutioned sheep will throw off more of these 

 ailments than the narrow ones. 



The crosses of this breed with merinoes make ideal wethers, and the 

 Lincoln-merino ewes when joined to the right class of ram throw suitable 

 lambs for the exi>ort trade ; so apart from the object in favorable seasons of 

 getting the lambs of this cross away as freezers, there is the later object 

 to be gained bv wool-growing and fattening the wethers and selling the 

 ewes to farmers and others for fat lamb raising, which in itself is becoming 

 now almost as profitable to the grazier as the actual fat lamb business. 



The ideal ewe for the small grazier and farmer is the three-quarter 

 bred Lincoln or Leicester. This ewe crossed with a good shaped Shrop- 

 shire or Southdown, produces the ideal lamb, the three-quarter bred ewe 

 having size and gooci milking properties, and the Shropshire giving the 

 thickness and qualitv of flesh and early maturing properties. If a good 

 fleeced Shropshire be used a good fleece can be grown as well, by those who 

 can keep their best ewe lambs each season to follow on with. So now it appears 

 that there is room for all three classes of sheep, Merinoes, Longwools, and 

 Downs ; and that it is not so much a matter of breed, as it is the shape 

 of the sheep used. We hear breeds of sheep condemned to-day by men who 

 have tried them unsuccessfully, and next day you meet men who are 

 making a success of those very breeds, and who are runri'mg down other 

 Ijreeds. It is our fault, and not the animals, half the time ; we bring them 

 in for a purpose for which they are unsuitable. 



Lincolns, Merinoes, and their crosses are really graziers' sheep and not 

 so much farmers', lait of course it is hard to draw the line between 

 a grazier and a farmer for manv farmers are both, and here it is 

 that a man must judge for himself. If he is in any doubt of not 

 being able tO' get off his crop of lambs for export annually, then he 

 is better with the Longwool crosses and not the Down crosses, for 

 it is impossible tO' supply the demand for good fleeced, correct shaped, 

 clean skinned sheep at present ; so many ill shapen, black and brown 

 faced culls, are about that the Shropshire breed is now suffering for its 

 rightly earned popularity, and it is now becoming the same with 

 Lincolns and Leicesters, anything that will pass for these breeds in name 

 is being used to catch the profit passing. One thing we should try tO' do 

 is to keep all our best shaped and fleeced ewe lambs each season, say 30 

 or 40 per cent. It is perhaps not possible for every farmer tO' do it, but 

 with many it is, and it is done mostly by those who take pains to select 

 the best ewes and rams they can to start with, for they cannot buy 

 as good ewes as they can breed themselves by this means. 



One thing that seems to be promising in Victoria is, that we are not 

 likely to get so badly off for suitable ewes for raising good lambs as the 

 New Zealand farmer has been. The demand for rams of the Longwool 

 breeds by large land-holders points to the fact of there being a better 

 supply of the right class of ewes for the farmer. We have a large number 

 of land-holders, in Northern Victoria and Riverina, who are not likelA 

 again to trv Shropshires. as thev are in a climate that is inconsistent, and 

 it is safer \york for them to go intO' Longwool breeds ; when the season is 

 favorable they have a good export lamb, and when otherwise they have a 

 good wool cutter. As the farmers who grow artificial crops of rape, 



