THE PRICE OF SHEEP.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 300, 28 April 1894, Page 2

THE PRICE OF SHEEP.

TO THE KDITOIt OF TIIK STAK Sik, — In your issue of Wednesday last I notice a paragraph comparing the prices of sheep and lambs of last year, with those ruling at the present time, and giving as one reason that, as many ewes were suffering from disease before lambing, the lambs this year are not up to the usual standard, in my opinion the Jambs are not so much at fault as the owners, and I think that the Masterton correspondent of the N.Z. Mail is getting somewhere near the mark when he says, " Notwithstanding the abundance of feed during the past season complaints are rife that stock have failed to fatten in the Hawke's Bay district, many attri bute this to a kind of rust that has attacked the pastures in many places." I noticed in my own paddocks the rust was very bad this year, and my wethers failed to fatten as they should h;ive done, the result is, the majority of them are still in the paddock when they should have been on their way to London. At the present time there are thousands of store wethers being driven from one sale to another, that should have been fat, and frozen during the last month or so, and thus, make room for the lambs. To show that a fair price can be obtained for fat sheep I may sny that I sent a number of fat 2-tooth wethers to Longburn Company not long since, and the net return is a fraction over 12s per head. I am, etc., Farmer. Colyton, April 27th, 1894.