LYTTELTON.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 36, 6 March 1862, Page 6 (Supplement)

LYTTELTON.

It has long ceased to be a matter of doubt, at least in the colonies, that America claims and enjoys a deserved superiority over the old country in all that relates to that class of machinery specially adapted to cheapen the cost of labour.' The excellence of her reaping and mowing machines, of her thousand and one implements peculiarly suited to the requirements of the early settler in a new country needed no comment now a-days, has experience has fully proved their superior qualities. We believe it will be a matter of surprise, however oven in these essentially pastoral countries to learn that cousin Jonathan claims the palm for excellence in his breed of sheep. We confess at once that we were utterly ignorant that any grounds existed for such a claim till we boarded the Mary Merrill and saw the sheep imported by her last week. To those who arc still in the depths of ignorance and doubt wc recommend an inspection of the 10 rams and 4 ewes now landed at Messrs. Stoddart and Sprott’s farm, at Diamond harbour. Wc are loth to spoil the pleasure every true lover of well-bred sheep must feel on seeing these extraordinary specimens, by attempting an imperfect description. It is sufficient for us to say that they bear about them every mark of being Merino sheep of the purest blood, while they conn bine the square frame of the Southdown with the size of the Leicester or Lincoln ; they carry ilccccs of the finest wool averaging 181bs. in -weight, and in some cases reaching 301b5., and that they have as much wool on the feet and legs as many sheep imported from Australia carry on their whole frame. It would seem as if the Aankces after all intended to show us the way how to breed sheep.— Lgttellon Times, Jan. 29. The Wellington Spectator remarks— In our present issue will be found an account of an important acquisition to New Zealand in the importation to the Province of Canterbury of an extraordinary breed of sheep by the Mary Merrill from the United States. The sheep arc large framed, the wool is very fine, and the weight of each fleece of one year’s growth is from eighteen to thirty pounds and has commanded in th(T market as high a price as 2s, per lb. Such a breed will give a stimulus to sheep-farming hitherto unknown in this colony. A man with his fifty or a hundred acres, by laying them out in paddocks sown with good English grass seed, would make a tidy thing out of them, seeing that each acre so farmed woxdd be able to feed five or six sheep, the wool of which at the lowest calculation of eighteen pounds, and only Is. per lb., would give a return tor wool alone of 45 per acre ; so that fifty acres would thus yield a yearly income of 4250, and consequently one hundred acres 4500, independently of the increase. If these calculations hold good, the importation of the animals will throw gold diggings into the shade. An account of other breed ol sheep still more extraordinary, will be louud in our columns of to-day. The sheep are called the Chinese breed, the increase of which is very great, cadi ewe having three, four, and even six lambs at a time. The weight of fleece of these sheep, one year’s growth, is at average 10 pounds, and is worth one shilling per lb. at least. It uould not be out of place here to hint at the benefit an acclimatisation society would confer on the country, by constantly looking out for the introduction of animals the produce from which would add infinitely to the export trade of New Zealand. For instance the Alpaca, Vicuna, and Llama, the Cashmere Goat, the Angola Goat, the Chinese sheep already mentioned, and many others that would from time to t ime become known. No country on the face of the globe is bettor suited for the raising of stock of all kinds than New Zealand, and it is to be hoped that active measures Mill in this matter speedily be devised to develop the rcsoiu’cos of our adopted country.