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532 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Dec., 1901 
Professor Lowrir: Another here says Lincolns, and another there says 
Dorset Horn. I[ would object much to have lambs with three breeds in them. 
If you have Merino and Lincoln, that is two strains, and you put Shropshire on 
to that, you get three. I have never tried it, and I am not sure whether any 
others have. If the College Farm had been big enough I would recommend 
that it should be tried, that we should get the two classes and keep them side by 
side, and take their total money returns on that particular land, and then I 
would be able to say whether the first cross or the half-bred lambs or the three- 
part bred, whether the Shropshire or the Lincoln, were the better money. I 
can only now argue from precedent, and I am arguing from the precedent of 
the South of Scotland and the North of England, than which there are fewer 
places in the world where farmers more appreciate sheep and know better how 
to work them. The conditions are different here. Their practice is to breed a 
three-part lamb and sell all the lambs, and they get a nice fine lot. Instead 
of having the Lincoln-Merino ewe and the Shropshire on top of that, I 
would have the half-bred Shropshire and the Shropshire on that. We can only. 
argue from analogy. You would get a slightly less valuable fleece in the dams, 
but you would get a nicer, earlier, plumper lamb; and you can carry more of 
them, and I think it would pay you to breed them in that way. I have bred 
’ the Merino ewe and the Dorset Horn ram, and then Pa the Dorset Horn 
on the crossbred ewe. I do not know how that would compare with the 
three-part bred Shropshire. Mr. Rankine, who has had as much experience 
in breeding lambs as anyone here, and as much success in it, goes for the South- 
down sheep for lambs, and practically for the pure-bred Southdown. Well, my 
experience in this State is only with the Dorset Horn-Merino and the three-part- 
bred Dorset Horn. The other day I weighed a few of these lambs to satisfy myself, 
and the best of them were these weights —two were 114 lb. each, then 112 lb., 
then 108 1b., 107 lb., 106 lb., and down to 95 1b. The average live weight of 
the first thirty that we weighed out of 104 lambs, lambed in May, was over 
100 lb. Most of them were the three-part-bred lambs, though some of them 
were first cross. They would be 55 Ib. or 56 lb., dressed—that is, getting too 
big for freezing. There was not a lamb down on the ist of May, and if I had 
a good big flock I could have been shifting them some time ago. They come 
when the grass is forming on the stubble, and are away when the summer is 
coming, and thus we have the remainder of the feed for the sheep at the bad 
time, and that is where I think it is going to be a great thing in South Aus- 
tralia. By the time the feed is gone you have your stubbles, and everybody 
knows what they will do. 
PASPALUM DILATATUM. 
There are always diversities of opinion in agricultural, as well as in all 
other pursuits, and when any new plant or fruit has been introduced and tried 
in different localities under different conditions of soil, climate, and rainfall, 
the wonder would be if farmers or fruit-growers were unanimous in praise 
thereof or in denouncing it. So it is with the fodder-grass Paspalum 
dilatatum. ‘‘Oxonian,” whose letter we printed in the last issue of the 
Journal, thinks it a good grass, but dangerous to grow on the cultivated land. 
J.D.Z., of Nerang River, in the following letter addressed to Queensland Country 
Life, approves highly of the grass. He says:— 
Four years ago I sowed my first seed and also planted a few thousand 
roots to form a seed bed. My farm is now practically sowed with paspalum, 
and the more I see of it the better I like it. Of course I mix other grasses 
and clovers as a change for the stock, but paspalum is the basis of the pasture ; 
it has proved itself a mainstay for the stock, growing vigorously when the 
fierce heat had withered up the other grasses. I have carefully observed it in 
all stages and variations, and I have come to the conclusion that Paspalum 
dilatatum is the very best grass for the farmer to rely upon as a permanent 
pasture. I say permanent advisedly, for after four years’ grazing the paddocks 
