Farm Notes.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4439, 22 July 1909, Page 4

Farm Notes.

THE NEW ZEALAND BOMNEY

Jjf a criticism of the sheep section of teethe last Sydney Boyal Show in a Sydney paper, the statement was

made that the Kentish Bomney, and p subsequently the ' New Zealand Bomney, had been improved by crossing with the English Leicester. This was afterwards quoted in the Fastoraiists’ Beview. It is satisfactory to see that in the last issue of the Beview the. President of the New Zealand Bomney Association has re plied to this aspersion on the Bomneys. ;Such statements, he says, became mischievously misleading owing to their want of explicitness. In years to come an editor or anonymous writer might just as truly state that towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, laudwoolled and Down rams were largely used by breeders in Australia. It would be quite true regarding some thousands of fat iambs for the London market, but it. might be most misleading Quoted as an “ historical incident,”, to detract from the reputa- • tion of the millions of merino sheep for which Australia is : famed.” As President of the N.Z. Association, Mr Wheeler does hot hesitate to give the Sj4oey statement an emphatic denial regarding the docks registered by bis incorporated Association. “We Bomney breeders,” he concludes, “ maintain that the improvement of carcase has been obtained by selection, and that just as Ellmau ana Webb, with their successors have evolved the Southdown of to- lay, so havo the Kentish and New Zealand breeders evolved the Bomney. Cross* ing would never have given this success, but careful selection will, and has at the ' same time retained the type,”