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GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



[Doc. 189G. 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



Mutton and Wool Trade of New Zealand. 



Until the inauguration of the frozen meat trade 15 years ago, 

 wool was the chief consideration with flock masters in New 

 Zealand. The sheep up to the latter time were, according to the 

 Nexv Zealand Farmer, for the most part merinos, which were 

 kept as long as they would yield a fleece or rear a lamb, and 

 then their only value was the few pence that their flesh and 

 fat would realise. Large quantities were used for tinning, but 

 millions were boiled down simply for their tallow, which then, 

 and for a few years later, was of substantial value, commanding 

 as much as to 40£. a ton, and sometimes even more, 



whereas it is only worth 171. or 181. a ton at the present 

 time. Apparently the value of the pelts had not then been 

 discovered in the colonies, and hundreds of thousands of the 

 skins of newly-shorn sheep were buried or otherwise got rid 

 of as valueless. Now even the very barest of pelts is worth 

 a few pence ; great numbers of them are tanned and otherwise 

 treated in the colony, while others are salted, packed in tierces, 

 and exported to England and America, where they are manu- 

 factured into various kinds of leather. Improved processes have 

 enabled the wool to be more economically treated in recent times, 

 and fellmongery is an important industry, while all the by- 

 products are converted into manure, &c. In the old times cross- 

 breds also were kept for their wool. The fertile lands of Hawke's 

 Bay, Poverty Bay, and some parts of the Auckland and Welling- 

 ton districts in the North Island were early stocked with long- 

 woolled sheep, and in the South Island the Border Leicesters 

 soon established themselves in Otago, but on most of the native 

 pastures and in the hill country the merino was placed. The 

 freezing trade gave a great impetus to cross breeding — that is, 

 breeding from long-woolled rams with merino ewes, and from that 

 day the merino has steadily become of less importance, giving way 

 to the crossbred wherever the latter would thrive — and in many 

 places where it would not. The change is said to be most 

 forcibly brought before the general public at the great agri- 

 cultural and pastoral shows, where a dozen years ago merino 

 sheep were the chief feature, while now the merino classes are 

 frequently a complete blank, their place being taken by Leices- 

 ters and Lincolns, with, in the North Island, a strong contingent 

 of Romneys. 



It seems that the change is continuing, the next phase 

 having been the rapid increase of the Down breeds, the demand 

 for these being purely owing to their value in producing early 

 lamb and mutton for freezing. A severe blow was also dealt 



