NEW ZEALAND MUTTON AT HOME.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1091, 26 September 1883, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND MUTTON AT HOME.

The following extract from a private letter, dated August 3, received by mail has been placed at the disposal of the Lyttelton Times :—“ I have waited until I could give you an authentic reply to your question about New Zealand refrigerated mutton. . . . When paying a visit to an old New Zealand resident, now living in Torquay (Colonel Russell), I asked about the New Zealand mutton., He said that he frequently had it at his table, and that a nephew of his had a sheep every time a ship came was equal, he said, to the very best English mutton. Mr Acton Adams, lately of Nelson (who is shortly going to Christchurch), said that he had it on his table every week, and that it equalled any English. To-day, I went down to one salesman in Leadenhall Market, to try and get some, but there was none to be had, as he said, it is soon sold, and is sent to almost all parts of England, and it is the best mutton he has in bis shop. The price of sides or whole carcases is 8d per pound, of joints 4d to 9|-d, and the demand is greater than the supply. . . . Other countries are entering into the trade. I mot a gentleman from the Argentine Republic, who told' me that they had sent an agent to Australia and New Zealand for the purpose of obtaining all the information they could on the subject. So, perhaps, in the course of time the market may be drugged, but as English mutton is now selling at Is 4d per pound and still rising, there is room for plenty of meat yet."