io THE SHEEP AND WOOL INDUSTRY 



the back-country pastoralist has his wool scoured and placed on 

 the market in that state. This fine wool, if well scoured, will very 

 often bring record prices and beat scoured wool of the strong, bold 

 type of Merino by 2d. or 3d. per lb., and a few pastoralists who 

 grow the fine wool are inclined to think it the best ; but financially 

 it is not so, because the clean scoured yield from fine wool in the 

 hot sandy country is very low ; in some cases it will lose 65 per 

 cent, of its weight. The strong-woolled sheep will give a much 

 heavier fleece of higher yielding wool than that of the fine- 

 woolled type of Merino. While employed as wool-classer on a 

 station in the Broken Hill District of New South Wales, where 

 the flock was of the fine-woolled type Merino, I noticed that all 

 the bulky, brightest, and most profitable fleeces were the coarsest. 

 By this I mean they were about the quality of the average strong 

 Merino wool. This and several other instances proved to me that 

 the strong wool was better able to stand the severe heat and dust- 

 storms than the fine, and gave the pastoralist the best return per 

 head for wool and carcase. 



CROSS-BRED SHEEP. 



We will now come to the Cross-bred sheep a type which is 

 rapidly gaining ground in Australia, especially in districts where 

 large estates have been cut up and the land thrown open to 

 farmers, who mostly go in for this type on account of the large 

 carcase they possess. The percentage of cross-bred wool was 22 

 per cent, in 1907-8 ; at the present time it is 26 per cent., so a large 

 increase has occurred in this variety. Cross-bred sheep require 

 fairly good country with plenty of water. For this reason they 

 thrive best in districts where the rainfall is plentiful. Another 

 thing you must have is very good fencing, as cross-bred sheep will 

 get over any low parts in a fence, or jump through if the rails are 

 too far apart or the wires too loose. All breeders of these sheep 

 know that it is very hard to breed an even type, as they throw in 

 all directions, though mostly resembling the sire. Some Victorian 

 and New Zealand breeders claim to have established a distinct 



