182 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



"The appearance of a plougli, or 'oxen .spade,' as I describe 

 it to the natives, has caused a great sensation. It is, however, 

 as new to the oxen as to the men, and it will take a little time 

 until our oxen can plough a straight furrow. 



"The real difficulty as regards land is that of securing any 

 large freehold or even leasehold grazing land. All land is 

 open to allcomers, and as the population, though not very large, 

 is pretty well distributed over the whole country-side, it is 

 difficult to secure from the Government the exclusive use of 

 any large area. 



"You will no doubt inquire, 'What about the native sheep 

 and cattle?' Sheep are fairly large and strong, mostly white, 

 with black or brown spots. In first crosses with Merinos 

 there seems to be very little black, mostly white and brown.. 

 As far as I can judge at present, the brown is short kemp, 

 while the longer wool is white. Thus a lamb which is quite 

 brown at birth, when it seems to be covered with only native- 

 bred kemp, may get quite white in time, when the wool appears. 



"As far as I can judge, both from the experience of British 

 East Africa and from the products of experiments started a few 

 years ago in this country by a Government 'vet.,' the second 

 cross is a great improvement on the first. In fact, I have seen 

 two absolutely distinct types of crosses resulting from the experi- 

 ments made in this country. One has white wool and short 

 brown kemp on the back, and only brown kemp on the belly ; 

 the line of demarcation between the two regions is quite definite. 

 Those sheep I take to be first crosses, viz., halfbred, or crosses- 

 between halfbred. 



"The other type has very little or no kemp on the back, and 

 has also the belly covered with wool. Those are, I suppose, 

 second crosses, viz., three-quarter Merinos, and no doubt also 

 sometimes crosses between halfbred, which have taken the Merino 

 characteristics both from sire and dam. Unfortunately, the 

 vet. who started these experiments— and who is now dead — was 

 not able to carry them on himself, and distributed his small 

 flock amongst the military and other Government officials of 

 the various surrounding stations. There they multiplied, and 

 were appreciated on account of the superior meat they provided 

 the 'mess' with, but systematic bi-eeding was discontinued, 

 and no record kept of the crosses. 



"What I have seen of these small flocks goes to show, however,, 

 that improvement in the wool can be rapidly secured, but also 

 that with indiscriminate breeding there can be an equally rapid 



