SHEEP BREEDING AND WOOLS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 88, 8 January 1935, Page 10

SHEEP BREEDING AND WOOLS

Influence of Environment

FACTORS ANALYSED BY DR. J. E. NICHOLS The factors which Influence sheep breeding in different parts of the world were the subject of an address by Dr. J. E. Nichols, head of the Biology Department of the British Wool Industries Association, at a recent meeting of the Leeds Rotary Club. Dr. Nichols, whose remarks were published in the “Yorkshire Post,” visited New Zealand about three years ago under the auspices of the now-defunct Empire Marketing Board and the British Wool Industries Association, in the course of a survey of the wool resources of the Empire.

"The sheep is a beast of many parts,” he said. "Even in the major woolproducing countries, we can no longer consider it as the producer of one particular commodity to the economic exclusion qf others. In other words, wool has tended to become largely a byproduct of animal husbandry, and possibly it will become even more so.” A recent estimate suggested that there are about 800 million sheep in the w’orld, producing about 3500 million pounds of raw wool. One-third of the sheep are in the British Empire, which produces about 46 per cent, of the world’s wool. Recently the British Empire has supplied about two-thirds of the world’s trade, although actually producing less than half of the total. Merino nnd Crossbred.

But the Empire’s wools are of the .better classes, suitable for carding and combing, of the merino and crossbred qualities. In the British Isles we have about 50 different pure breeds, and a great number of cross-breeds and intermediate types.

After dealing with the various types in the British Isles, Dr. Nichols said in New Zealand the high mountainous areas are the main reservoirs of maintenance stock, in this case chiefly merino and Romney. The former was the pioneer type, but the Romney now predominates. It is very useful in that it telescopes the stages toward the important fat lamb, while the merino requires several intermediate crosses. The merino, however, is important in that it is the only suitable type for the dry mountain regions.

In Australia the controlling factor is in many respects the rainfall. In a total population of about 112 million sheep. Mie greatest centres of .distribution are in the regions with between 20in. and 30in. annual rainfall. The mountainous areas and others of high rainfall are unsuitable for sheep, which automatically ensures that the merino is the dominant type and its reservoir areas very extensive. Within the equilibria of environment the basic sheep types tend mainly to keep a steady interrelationship, and apart from widespread catastrophes like an intense drought, fluctuations in product are small. Dual-purpose Animal. “The very nature of many of these conditions precludes them from the free control of the individual sheep breeder or owner. I do not wish to give the impression that the breeder is not cognisant of, or is antagonistic to, the manufacturers’ demands, or that the grower is too stupid an animal to be moulded in some degree toward meeting these demands. He is ready and anxious to accommodate himself so far as he can to meet the trade’s requirements, but so long as man must eat and the sheep remain a-free grazing but dual-purpose animal, they have jointly to contend with forces and influences that tend to restrict their adaption. As thesp conditions differ, so ipust the range and character of the wool product also differ. “There is in each country a marked inelasticity of its home supply in quality and kind, just as the world supply is relatively Inelastic. I would suggest that this consideration is lost sight of quite frequently, at least sufficiently often to rouse doubts in one's mind as to the soundness of moves which may be made quite arbitrarily to encourage local production in relation to local manufacture, or the reverse. “At the same time the demand for wool products is comparatively elastic, so that we tend to find the price fluctuations which introduce a state of great uncertainty.”