SHEEP FARMING.

Patea Mail, 20 March 1882, Page 3

SHEEP FARMING.

“ Agricola ” writing in the Auckland Herald says—ln Great Britain there are, at the present time, 6,000,000 less sheep than there were years ago. This is a very great reduction, and has been mainly caused by liver-rot, sheep-pox, scab, and drought. In the December issue of the Agricultural Gazette , the editor writes as follows regarding this extraordinary decrease in the number of~sbeep‘J : —“The diminution of the sheep stock of the country must certainly be looked upon as a national loss. We well remember the late Mr John Grey, of Dilston, enlarging in eloquent strains upon the advantages of sheep farming, and quoting a Persian proverb which accredited the sheep with the possession of golden feet. The lapse must be considered as due to sheer misfortune rather than to any real change of opinion as to the relative profitableness of cattle and sheep. Sheep-pox carried off its tens of thousands in 1863 ; drought decimated our flocks id 1868 and 1870, sending thousands and tens of thousands prematurely to the knife ; then came the wet decade, in which liver-rot became a fearful scourge, in some cases destroying entire flocks. These plagues have frightened many farmers into giving up their flocks, and we attribute the great reduction of the sheep stock of the country to their effects.”

If the right sort of sheep are kept, the situation dry, and the food plentiful, with proper management, sheep pay remarkably well in the old country. It is calculated that a ewe flock will average £2 per head per annum, reckoning the lambs and wool. Or, according to the editor above quoted, 500 ewes will pay £IOOO per annum for return. And “as this stock should be maintained in 600 acres of land, sheep will pay £2 per acre ; and as the same extent of land ought to yield 200 acres of corn at an average value of £8 per acre or £3 4s. per acre over all, and as we might reasonably look for £1 per acre from dairy and other sources, we have a gross income of upwards of £6 per acre from this system of management upon land of naturally poor quality, which, were it not for sheep husbandry, might not be worth breaking up. In such cases the sheep make the corn crop, and must be considered as the mainspring of the farm. If rent is moderate there ought to be a fair profit from such a farm.”

It cannnot be said that sheep pay so well in this country as they do at home ; and yet on suitable runs sheep-farming is no doubt as profitable as any other kind of farming. Plenty of money has been made even here by keeping sheep, in the South particularly. And perhaps there is no place in the world more adapted to sheepfarming than New Zealand, for here can be found rolling country, high and dry, upon which there is no fear of liver-rot existing. It is a country, moreover, not subject to lengthy droughts, and with a climate, notably in the North, suited to the maintenance of the health and vigor of a flock. Sheep-farming should be encouraged, and nothing done by toe Government or their officers that might have a tendency to annoy or harass sheepfarmers, making them probably throw the thing up in disgust, if not leave the colony altogether.