STOCK-FEEDING.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 218, 22 November 1859, Page 3

STOCK-FEEDING.

{From the South Australian Register.) A question of much importance which occupied the attention of the Farmers' Club at its last meeting was the keeping of sheep on. agricultural farms, and this same subject, we find, is attracting considerable attention in the adjoining colonies. The price of butcher's meat, in fact, which ha 3 given rise to this and kindred topics, promises to become a general colonial question, for it is one which concerns all classes, and is at present chiefly affected, not merely by temporary drought or murrain, but by a steady and large decrease in the number of sheep which the extensive pastoral colony of New South Wales is able to send into the market. Apart from that fact, however, there has long been a growing necessity for sheepfarming in the agricultural districts of these colonies on account of the serious deterioration which now results in procuring sheep for slaughtering purposes from the distant runs on which they are fed. To many people it is a mystery, We believe, as to what becomes of the large profits which at first sight would seem to attend the transference of mutton from the run of the squatter to the shop of the butcher, but the receipt of which profits nobody will acknowledge. _ At one time a great deal of public indignation, in connection with this matter, is visited upon the sheepfarmer; then upon the dealer to whom he sells his sheep; and then upon the butcher who retails the meat; whilst not unfrequently when high prices prevail all. three are assailed at once. The. great cause of the evil, however, after all, is that pur sheepruns are daily getting farther and farther away from the centres of population, and thatJntjiraversing the hundreds of miles of fenced highway which unite those runs with the city^ the sheep lose half their value; or, in other words they leave their fat on the road. It has been stated on good authority that a sheep which weighs sixty pounds on the leaving its run in the north weighs only 45 lb. by the time it is killed in Adelaide, so that there is lost twenty-five per cent of meat, whilst that which is left is considerably deteriorated. Neither the squatter nor the butcher can be, of course, any gainer by this waste of property, whilst as to the üblic they are compelled |n consequence to pay a high price for aq inferior article. subject,' we §cc, has forced itself upon general attention in Melbourne as well ns here, and has elicited from a writer in the Argus the following Remarks:—

"The land for a considerable distance from Melbourne in every direqtion has been alienated from the Crown, and the roads, in consequence, are getting more and more fenced in every day till it has become a matter of some difficulty to bring sheep from the interior to the Melbourne market in anything like prime condition. If any one would take the trouble to con over the salesmen's circulars he would see at once what an enormous quantity of half-fat sheep there are brought into the market compared with what are really prime. Of course many of these sheep were not prime fat when they left the station, but still a great deal of it is owing. to the confined state of the roads; and in another year or so if things are allowed to go on as they are now doing, a prime fat, sheep will become a very scarce article m it will have the effect of making the price5 ofgood mutfoii much higher than the people will care about paying for it. 1" have no doubt many of .your readers, when they see this, well exclaim^ ' Why can't they be brought down by rail?-' and how is it that" sheep travel the old country where there are nothing but lanes?" I also have studied this and have looked at it in this light, Railways are.s^re to b,e y ; ery expen? fcive, ih the firgt nlape; ajjd, jn' the next, sheep |ravelling"in the old cquntry have their regular -§tages, and parties find turnips, &c, for them at 80 much per head. But it is totally different in this country. Farmers here have scarcely enough land to get their own living, much less to find accommodation for a flock of sheep varying in numbers from 2000 to 6000."' •

This case is very much like our own, and the writer suggests, as remedies for the evil referred to, that main roads should be left sufficiently wide to enable sheep to feed as they travel, or that large reserves should be open for the]? uge at mV tervals of distance lietweei} the\-f uns, and v ei.ty. In tijis eplpnyj however, wfe think 1' there is no plan jo. #'ell calculated to meet the aifficulty as the one we have already referred to—that of keeping sheep on agricultural farms within easy reach of the city. Mr. Abraham Shannon, who has several times brought this important subject forward, has given a practical trial to the system, and his evidence in favor of it is very strong. Not only has he found the keeping of sheep profitable in itself, but their feeding is a benefit to his fallow land, the green stuff of which is thereby kept down ■without the injurious trampling AVhiijii-^ouid rettflt from 'the feeiJiiig1 of laVg'er In fact, years' experience Of the system,; he reij6mmendß'it warmly to the attention of others, and we*think, on the strength of that recommendation, wte may reasonably look forward to the jjlan'of breeding sheep on ordinary farms, as. one great for th,e increasingly lygh" p.ri^e and |car<jity, of. gqqd'mqt'tqn." events,' gsneral, jlttentiqi; is now becoming aroused to the subject, and both the dear meat difficulty and the remedy for it promise at length to be treated in a practical manner.