148 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
he will not attain for many years. This choice will be 
influenced by two prime considerations, the length of 
his purse and the size of his holding. If a man has 
a limited purse and a large run, anything over 30,000 
acres, he almost must of necessity stock his land with 
native ewes which will cost him from 5 s. to js. 6 d. per 
head rather than import a pure bred flock at an 
average price of £2. On the other hand, if he has 
a run of but 5,000 acres, and also a well-filled pocket, 
he will get the best and quickest results of full 
development by importation. With pure bred merinos 
there is no question of deterioration ; on the contrary, 
they more than maintain their vigour, and the wool 
improves both in weight and quality. It has already 
fetched 11 \d. a pound. Up to the present date 
almost without exception the pockets of our sheep- 
farmers have not been lined in full proportion to their 
acreage; they have had, in fact, more mud than 
money. Without attempting to offer a table of com¬ 
parative results from these two methods, which would 
be affected by the price of wool in the home market, 
by the local price for ram lambs and still more by the 
capacity and value of the farm, the fact remains that 
in almost every case farmers have been content to 
use the native ewe as their basis, relying on their 
wethers to pay expenses, and anticipating in the 
ultimate wool clip from the graded ewe flock the profit 
which previous results have indicated. Their reasons 
have been that the small capital available for stock 
was more safely invested over a large number of 
animals at the lower price acclimatised to the country 
than in imported stock. Grazing cost practically 
nothing and herd boys could be trusted more safely 
with the lower priced animals. In any case there 
