1 Ocr., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 379 
are usually inferior, so get good full-mouth ewes and take, say, a couple of 
seasons out of them, then sell again as fat as you can get them. Do not mind 
paying a fair price for a ram, and do not make the mistake of letting him run 
all the year round with the ewes. Hither have a small pen and hand-feed him, 
or get someone to paddock him who has a flock of rams. Put the ram with 
your ewes about lst December, and take him out in April. _1¢ will pay any man 
who puts in 100 acres every year, and has 100 fallow, to keep sheep. If he 
cannot keep more, thirty ewes and a ram will generally return twenty-seven or 
twenty-eight lambs, and frequently more. Now these lambs will fetch about 
8s. or 9s. each, and if extra prime up to 12s. The wooloff the ewes is another item, 
and even at present prices would return about 4s. per sheep, or say 12s. for the 
wool and lamb per ewe, which on thirty ewes is £18, which at present 
represents a small stack of hay. They will keep the weeds down, and a 
harrowing will do for the fallow instead of a scarifying. The cost of sheep- 
eeoing is not much. A three-wire fence around a section would require, say, 
‘our more wires, which only means about £1 6s. a wire besides labour, About 
£8 would pay wire and labour to make a whole section sheep-proof, and this 
would be returned the first year. It can be nothing but profitable, and the 
cost is small ; and I urge everyone with three or more sections to try it. 
LOCALLY-GROWN MANITOBA, OR DULUTH WHEAT. 
We have received from Mr. E. H. Gurney, I'.C.S., the following article on 
Manitoba wheat, originally published in the New South Wales Agricultural 
Gazette, which will doubtless prove of interest to wheatgrowers and millers in 
this State. Mr. Gurney explains that the figures under “percentage of mill 
products”? are calculated from the actual products obtained, and not from the 
original weight of wheat milled. “Strength in quarts water” means the 
number of quarts of water a flour will absorb to make a dough of a given 
consistency. This water-absorbing power represents the quantity of bread that 
can be made from any flour (as illustrated in the article), and indicates also the 
rising power of the dough. 
The following is the article referred to :— 
(From Acricunruran Gazerre or New Sournm Watxs.) 
By F. B. GUTHRIE, 
Chemist to the Department of Agriculture, New South Wales. 
A glance at the commercial columns of the daily Press is sufficient to 
convince wheatgrowers how important is the question whether Manitoba grain 
can be profitably cultivated in the colony, or whether, as some have predicted, 
it is liable to deterioration when grown in our climate and soil. 
The present market quotations for wheat and flour (wholesale) are as 
follows :— 
Milling wheat, 2s. 84d. to 2s. 9d. 
Flour, £6 5s. to £6 10s. 
Manitoba flour, £9 10s. 
Local buyers are prepared to pay £3 per ton more for flour made from Manitoba 
in than for flour obtained from the locally-grown varieties of wheat—that is, 
f as much again. 
T suppose the characteristics of this flour are pretty well known to all who 
are likely to read this. The so-called Manitoba flour is probably all imported 
from Duluth, and whether it is milled from Manitoba or Duluth grain is of no 
importance. The grain is identical, or is of the same kind, and is a Fife grain. 
_ The characteristics of the Fife wheats have been often enough discussed 
Inthe Gazette. In the mill they differ from the softs wheats principally in 
producing a flour of superior strength or water-absorbing capacity. This is the 
