A SHEEPFARMER'S ADVICE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 255, 16 July 1918, Page 8

A SHEEPFARMER'S ADVICE

Speaking from a lifelong experience in toe hill country of Canterbury (eays the Lyttelton Times"), Mr. Bernard Tripp, ;• ot Oriiri Gorge SUtion, advises farmers ■" not (o wa.it for iJie enow to melt, but to f Ret to work at once and save as many j sheep as possible. "If people rua awny with the idea that - the snow will clear off suddenly in July," • he, "they are making a great nihtelco. They must make up their minds . that the enow will lie on the ground, for I many weeks. They therefore must lo 1 all in their power to ifej; their.sheep on to ridges from which the snow may nave been blown, or if possible they must get . them where there is feed in the down country. 1 take it that the snow will not melt until some time in August, and niter that there will be quite six weeks' ' work for capable men in skinning sheen j killed by (ho snow." Mr. Tripp suggests the use of snowploughs tu- clear a roud through tinsnow, in order that the sheep may be taken out. The Mackenzie County Council has lour of these appliances. One of them is a Canadian design, uixl in it the horses nv« behind the plough ami push it alonj;. These ploughs already have done remarkably good work in clearing roads. They went through Iα Lake Telaipo. The distance is about twenty-five mile?, and (he snow wns -ft. Gin. or .'lit. deep. T'tii'iiicM are able lo ■ make sido •;racks- into the roads made by i the ploughs, and by this means sheep . are taken down to the railway and truek- . Ed away to t!ie feed. The Government i anil the National BHicieiicy Board had : been very good. Afr. Tripp said. Special trains had been run on .Sundays and on ■ other days; m;u used to suow work called up had been giveu extended time; and if there were men in cninp fitted for ; that work they would be released until the wui:k was.finished. . . •Mr. Tripp had heard a great deal of the great snowstorm of 1867, but that 'storm occurred, before he was born, lie has a lively recollection, howevar, of the snowstorms of 189.5. iiud 19011, and this year',-) snowstorms, in districts that caught iis iiiry, is tho worst he has experienced. Moro sheep, probably, were killed i,i the South Island in 1895 than in 11118, because tho storm was general, rasing from Kelson to Southland, and the present storm is not very severe until Lake Tekapo is reached, tho lower end of the Mackenzie Country being practically clear. All along the* foot of the hills up to the Nelson province, in the front, however, it is much' more serious than in 1595. The storm of 190;) also was severe in the- front lulls. The back country, apparently, has not suffered greatly by the- present storm; in places like Lake Heron and Mesopotamia the snow is only 18in. deep, while in the front country it varies from 2ft. Gin. to 4ft. The spring that followed the storm of 1595 wns one of the best springs Mr. Tripp remembers in Canterbury. Nor'weslers c-ame along in .August with warm weather, find the country seemed to go almost straight into spring. "I hope Hint this will happen Wiis year ■ also," Jit. Tripr> concluded.