*, 
312 Sys © QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Sepr., 1899. 
teach the natives’ and Europeans also the vast field for profitable industry 
before them, than to attempt to perpetuate, by a paltry protection, the present 
miserable state of things. Other countries which can and do grow cane-sugar 
have of late years made or will shortly make (in the Philippines, for example), 
great strides in the improvement of their produce, and we fear that unless 
India puts her shoulder to the wheel, that the decay of her sugar industry will 
become still more apparent, while the imposition of countervailing duties will 
only tend to promote a sense of false security, postponing thereby the improye- 
ments in manufacture which are the basis of eventual success in the keen 
competition of the present day. The fact that America imposes countervailing 
duties on bounty-fed sugar to protect her own sugar industry, does not prevent 
her being a large buyer of beet sugar. The impending “ destruction” of the 
Indian sugar industry appears to bea very sudden thing, for only two years ago 
the imports from the Continent fell off immensely when sugar was temporarily 
dearer. If India, with a costly freight and enormous inland railway distances, 
cannot compete with a fall of 1s. or so in German granulated, the ‘‘ native 
home of the cane” must indeed bein a bad manufacturing way. The following 
are the figures of the Continental sugar imports to India:—1894-95, 46,026; 
1895-96, 14,400 ; 1896-97, 60,536 ; 1897-98, 107,383. 
SHEEP DRESSING. 
BEST METHODS OF BUTCHERING AND DRESSING SHEEP DESCRIBED. 
Srrcxrve in large slaughter-houses is usually performed while the sheep or lamb 
hangs suspended by its hind leg or legs, and is being carried rapidly along a 
track or chain moved by machinery, this branch of the business being allotted 
to one or more men, who despatch an enormous number ina day. As this article 
is intended to instruct those contemplating killing their own home-raised shee 
and lambs, a local method of dressing will no doubt prove more readable an 
interesting to the average reader. 
A sheep is laid on its left side with its head over the drain or blood gutter; 
it is then stuck by plunging the knife clear through the neck, close behind the 
ear, and cutting off both veins of the neck. Some slaughter-men sever both the 
windpipe and ‘‘meat-gut,”’ but, myself, I consider it the cleaner method to 
leave both these intact. Now, if the left hand is placed under the lower jaw of 
the animal, and the right on top of its head, its neck may be easily broken, at 
the first joint, next the head ; pulling up with the left hand and pressing down 
with the right is just how it is done. 
The neck being broken, by inserting the finger in the hole made by the 
-sticking-knife, the spinal “marrow” or cord can be severed, and all fear of the 
animal crying or ever regaining its feet is at an end. Now take another 
animal, and lay it on its’ left side as in the former case, but push its under front 
and hind legs under the dead one, and so on to any number desired ; this 
method insures each animal holding another in position for sticking. 
Legging is next in order of procedure. Lay the dead animal on its back; 
place its near front leg between your knees, and then take between the first 
finger and thumb of your left hand the skin of the front part of the shank of 
the leg; then with an upward pull of the skin, and an upward cut of the 
knife, the front part of the shank is skinned, and at the same time an opening is 
made for receiving the knife in opening the shank in an almost direct line to the 
mouth. By keeping the knife a little slanting while opening the skin, the 
chances of cutting into the flesh are minimised. 
After opening the skin from the shank to the head, commence to skin with 
the blade of the knife, being careful not to cut either the flesh or the skin; 
after loosening the skin a little along the edge of the opening, you will find that 
the handle of the knife is the best to skin with. The main art in skinning is 
not to use the blade of the knife more than you can possibly help. Sometimes 
you can pound off the skin with your fist at an astonishing speed; especially is this 
true in regard to “ripe” (fat) animals; butit must be borne in mind that it is 
