6x6 



Cross breeding is also practised with border and English 

 Leicesters and with Cotswolds, and each cross has its admirers. 

 One of the best and oldest flocks of crossbreds in Victoria is that 

 raised at Belinda Vale under the management of Mr. Robt. Clarke, 

 and owned for many years by the late Sir W. J. Clarke. The flock 

 has been in existence for nearly 40 years, and has no superior in 

 Australia. Pure sires of both breeds are used, and to secure rams 

 of sufficiently high class two studs are maintained on the estate. 



Another cross much liked by those who raise lambs for market 

 is between the merino ewe and the down ram. The Southdown 

 has been used for this purpose for years, and has given very satis- 

 factory results. The lambs are of the very best quality, and "though 

 smaller than those of other cross are in great favor with many 

 owners of small flocks. Hampshire downs make a fine cross with 

 the merino or the comeback ewe. They give a heavy weight of 

 carcase, a good fleece, and they mature rapidly. The Shopshire is 

 said to be extremely valuable for lamb raising. They have been in 

 use for this purpose for some time past in South Australia, and the 

 results have been all that could be desired. 



Many sheep farmers are of opinion that a crossbred flock cannot 

 be maintained, for the reason that after the first cross there is too great 

 deterioration in the stock raised. But this we have seen in the 

 Belinda Vale flock and others is not the case. A crossbred flock 

 can be kept up, and very valuable animals raised, both for carcase 

 and fleece, but it can be done only by using good rams of pure 

 breed on each side. 



Many attempts have been made to establish a variety midway 

 between the longwool and the merino, but all the sheep so raised 

 have, to my mind, been inferior to the crossbred raised from pure 

 sires of the two breeds. 



lie who would raise good crossbreds must use good rams on a 

 well-selected lot of breeding ewes. It seems to be a fixed idea 

 with many owners of small flocks that a crossbred is necessarily a 

 mongrel, in the worst sense of the term. So they are on many an 

 Australian farm, but there is no necessity for it. Often when a 

 farmer starts sheep breeding he buys far too many sheep, and he 

 buys cheap, I should say, low-priced sheep. With these sheep he 

 uses rams of whose breeding not even the most experienced sheep 

 breeder would ha/ard a guess. They would have made bad 

 wethers, and should never have been kept as rams. Such a flock, 

 with the rams among the ewes all the year, 

 neglected, wandering about the roads to pick- 

 living, is the most hopeless spectacle one could look at. 



If sheep breeding is worth going into at all it is worth doing 

 well. Good sheep are pleasant to look upon ; they cost no more to 

 feed than bad ones, and they give a much higher profit. It is bad 

 husbandry to keep g-><>d sheep badly, and it is still worse 

 husbandry to keep bad sheep at all. On the large farm sheep are 



half-starved and 

 up a precarious 



