468 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Nov., 1901. 
SHEEP ON THE FARM. 
The time is fast approaching when farmers on the Darling Downs and in 
other districts will breed lambs for export in large numbers. The soil, the 
climate, the native and cultivated grasses, all point to the possibility of this 
industry largely developing. Some three years ago a lecturer at one of the 
Canadian farmers’ institutes gave the following ten reasons why farmers should 
keep sheep :— 
They are profitable. 
They weaken the soil least and strengthen it most. 
. They are enemies of weeds. 
The care they need is required when other farm operations are slack. 
. The amount of investment need not be large. 
. The returns are quick'and many. 
. They are the quietest and easiest managed of all farm stock. 
Other farm products are made more largely from cash grains, whilst 
those from the sheep are made principally from the pasture. 
. There is no other product of the farm that has fluctuated so slightly 
in value as mutton. , 
10. By comparison, wool costs nothing, for do not the horse and cow, in 
shedding their coats, waste what the sheep saves ? 
The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, we are glad to 
learn, has co-operated with the Drayton and Toowoomba Agricultural Society 
to offer a considerable prize to sheepbreeders who will exhibit lambs suitable 
for export at the society’s next show in January. There will be two prizes. 
The first, the society’s prize for the best pen of thirty lambs fitted for freezing ; 
the second, a prize of £10, given by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile 
Agency Company, which, by subscriptions in addition, will probably amount to 
£50 for the pen, which, when frozen and shipped to London, obtain the 
Iughest price in that market. The New Zealand Company undertakes to 
prepare the lambs for shipment on account of the owners, and to return to each 
the net proceeds of the whole shipment. Owners can make as many entries as 
they please. 
This is a decidedly good step in the right direction. The results will 
doubtless be eagerly looked forward to by all farmers and graziers, and 
especially by owners of grazing farms. If successful, there can be little doubt 
that the breeding and export of frozen lambs will assume very large pro- 
portions. ) 
fo ONAN wyH 
BEE-KEEPING—HOW TO KEEP RECORDS OF HIVES, 
The above diagram should have accompanied Mr, H. R. Stephens’s article 
on bee-hives in the last issue of the Journal, but was inadvertently omitted. 
