Auckland Lamb

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 928, 22 March 1930, Page 27

Auckland Lamb

“NOTHING BETTER'

COJLMEXTIXG on an exhibit of fat lambs sent to .Smithfield from the Waikato A. and P. Show of last November the judges stated that they had never seen a better run of lambs for evenness, quality and suitability for London butchers’ requirements. The lambs were exhibited at the Waikato Show in the district classes, killed and dressed at W. and R. Fletchers', Ltd., and sent home to Smithfield for final classing in respect to their suitability for that market.

Reports from the London house of I Messrs. W. and R. Fletcher stated | that the exhibit made one of the finest i showings of frozen lamb ever seen at ! Westfield. The 506 lambs in the class ! took up a whole front of that firm’s I large stall in the main avenue, and was the centre of attraction for all j visitors to the markets. The line j arrived in great condition and it was ’ evident that the lambs had been very j carefully handled at the works prior | to shipment. Commenting on a winning line, the j judges referred to the evenness of the | exhibit; the lambs were finished to a j turn, and were as even as peas, just ; the right weight for best butchers’ I purposes. All this comment is in respect to lamb grown on country which, a few years ago, was generally regarded as little use for anything else but dairying, and even for this only if intensive farming methods were used. For anyone a number of centuries ago to have said that any part of the Auckland Province would some day produce lamb which would be regarded by experts on the Smithfield market as “some of the best they had ever seen” would have been looked upon as a wild stretch of imagination; Canterbury lamb was held to be supreme, and as such always commanded premium prices. Today, Waikato lamb has been proved equal to Canterbury lamb, but, nevertheless, producers here are asked to be content with lower prices. Exporters will even admit the sameness in the quality of the lamb from both districts, but, generally put up the argument that handling costs in the Auckland Province make it impossible

to pay the same price as in the South, 1 where the lambs are either handled in large-sized drafts from the bigger sheep stations, or are bought in the saleyards handy to the works. In the Auckland Province, it is argued, the lambs are picked up in small drafts in all parts and as a result handling costs are considerably greater than those in the South. Whatever happens in respect to prices, however, it seems that every season the Auckland Province, and the Waikato particularly, is more and more establishing its name as a fat lamb producing province. Every year production figures increase, and this season there is every indication that further records will be registered at the various works handling Aucklandgrown frozen lamb. One factor has played a dominatingpart in this increase in production—-top-dressing, backed up by better farming methods generally. Amazing results have followed the correct use of top-dressing manure iu the Waikato; even more astonishing results can be looked for in the North over the next decade as the farmers there become more and more convinced of the value of the consistent use of topdressing manures, particularly superphosphate, which has proved to be the best of all phosphatic manures on all classes of land. Top-dressing has been the means of increasing production from grassland, but the utilisation of the extra feed offers a problem to the straight-out dairy farmer, and there is not the slightest doubt but that it will become a general practice all over the Auckland Province for dairy farmers to carry some ewes and raise fat lambs along with the cows.