11 Dec, 1916.] Saving Female Stock. 759 



SAVING FEMALE STOCK- AN ENGLISH OPINION. 



All over the United Kingdom, states a contributor to the " Mark-lane 

 Expi-ess," flock mastei-s are talking of the especially high prices being 

 realized by sheep, the best making well over Is. per pound, a price the 

 equal of which has not been enjoyed by the present race of flock 

 owners. " What a profitable occupation this must be," one has heard 

 time after time from the amateur or the urban dweller. " To sell sheep 

 at the price at which they are being sold must mean an enormous pro- 

 fit." The English writer points out that it is not by any means the 

 case that the increased price per pound represents an equal amount 

 of increased profits. Not only are store sheep, which, after all, are 

 the stock-in-trade of the grazier, equally expensive to buy, but every 

 commodity that is needed to produce fat sheep has increased in like 

 measure, and it is more than probable that the profits derivable at the 

 moment by the flock owners are none too large, considering the in- 

 creased risk and cost incurred. 



At the present time, in Australia, it is interesting to note that the 

 English writer remarks that what, perhaps, is of the most serious moment, 

 botn for the flock owner and for the country at large, is the danger of 

 a larger number of breeding ewes, or those that become breeding ewes, 

 being slaughtered. It is a big temptation, he remarks, to many a man 

 to know that his ewe tegs, which ought to be kept on to be added to the 

 flock, are worth the money that is so readily paid by the butcher. Far 

 too many, this writer fears, will be tempted to realize and to trust to 

 Providence to replace at a later date. 



The same writer says: — "Much was heard last season about the 

 stqppage of the slaughter of ewe lambs. We have heard nothing — or 

 comparatively nothing — this season; yet the need of its emphatic 

 enforcement is far more paramount now than twelve months ago. One 

 has only to look to the moderate supply of mutton to realize the serious- 

 ness of the position, for during last month, April, 1916, we actually 

 imported less mutton than we did during that month in the year 1895 

 by some 34,000 cwt. ; yet during the past twenty-five years the popula- 

 tion of this country has so largely increased, and the sheep population 

 so strikingly decreased. The position at the moment is tlie smallest 

 sup,ply of foreign and colonial mutton received for twenty-five years, and 

 the smallest available supply of home grown and fed mutton that we 

 have known for years past." 



A leading autliority said at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England twelve months since that the liritish farmer was 

 al)le to look after himself; he needed no one to guide him, and if it paid 

 him to breed sheep he would breed tliem, &c. " That doctrine," the 

 "Mark-lane Express" writer adds, "is all very well, but the Britisli 

 farmer represents but one section of a big community, and it is only 

 reasonable and right tliat tliat community should take care to look after 

 its best interests, and those interests unquestionably at the ])resent 

 time require that every sheep capablo of being added to the breeding 

 stock of this country sliould be saved, and none slaughtered either as 

 lambs, or yearlings, or any other ago, except such as are barren, tooth- 

 less, or otherwise defective and undesirable for breetling puj-poses." 



