STOCK BREEDING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 279, 5 June 1873, Page 7

STOCK BREEDING.

(" Argus," Jpril 2G).

Iv our yesterday's issue there appeared this announcement : — ' ; Two heifers, one and two years old, bred out of Mr. Richard Morton's Derimut stock, have been sold for £1250," and in our present issue it ia reported that the same breeder has obtained £700 for one of his 13 months old bulls. It is seldom that we have had stock news to place before our readers so striking as this, or so satisfactory. Higher prices than that which Mr. Morton received for his young bull have often been realised, but the price obtained for his heifers is something quite unprecedented. If the reader will only reflect for a moment, he will realise the magnitude of the price paid. A young cow bears as precarious a life as a young bull, and the life of pure-bred stock, judging from recent occurrences, eeems to hang by a frailer thread than the life of more ordinary creatures. Then a cow may prove barren, as will happen in the most aristocratic of bovine families, in which case her value will drop down to mere butchers' price. And in the be^t of cases she cannot be expected to leave more than six or eight descendants lo hand down her merits to posterity. Considering all these things, the price paid for Mr. Morton's two heifers not only speaka highly for the quality of the animals themselves, and for the esteem in which their race is held, but also provus that Australian stockowners conduct their business in a spirit of intelligent enterprise, which deserves a rich reward, and is likely to obtain it. For it is incontestible that moat producora, having the use of vast pastures at a cheap rate, cannot but reap a wry targe profit from the improvement of their stock. A squatter who sends 3000 or 4000 fat beasts to market every year can well afford to pay £1000 for a bull, when within a few years his purchase will prove the means of adding from £1 to £3 per head to the selling \.tfue of his stock. Wo have already had ample experience of operations like this. A briodf' hundreds of miles iaom Melbourne buys a few youug hulls and heifers of the improved Shorl-horn, Durham, or Hereford breed, and ere lonir the good blood permeates his whole he rd, and his account-sales show a splendid improvement as the outcome of the operation, [n view of this fact, it is matter for unmixed satisfaction thut we have enterprising breeders and importers equal to the task of introducing into tae oviiutry improved cattle in adequate nuinbeivs, and giu^iera enterprising enough lo avail thein&i koh freely of the facilities thus brou^U

within their reach. And it is not Victoria aloue that profits by the spirit of our importers and breeders. Mr. Morton's high-priced bull and heifers, above referred to, have been purchased in Sydney, aud we are constantly exporting young animals of high pedigree and undeniable quality, not only to New South Wales, but also to New Zealand and the remotest regions of Queensland.

While the improvement of Btoek continues to proceed so rapidly in Australia, almost regardless of expense in Great Britain it seems to arouse less enthusiasm now than it did some years ago. Indeed, there are now some agricultural authorities in the old country who scoff at it in the newspapers and on public platforms, de noucing it as a delusion, an extravagance, a mere temporary craze — like tulip growing and the like. It may bo that the thing has been canied aj little too far in England and Scotland. There are so many amateur agriculturists there — lords, squires, retired merchants, clergymen, and half-pay officers, who make a hobby of breeding, and love to see their names on the prize lists — that higher prices may have been given for well-bred auimals than was quite justifiable on purely business coir iderations. But nobody was anything the worse, except the buyers themselves, and thes<e had a perfect right to spend their surplus money in the purchase of high-priced beasts, just as they had a perfect right to spend it on racehorses, or on works of art, or on any other of the innumerable indulgences of which wealth always has full command. At the same time, it is certain that the public were gainers by the outlay, since it tended to the general improvement cf British cattle — to their increase in size, to their greater pronencss to become fat at an early age, to that notable change in their form, winch adaiits of their whole carcases beiniz cut up into economical and presentable portions. But the argument on which the improvement of stock has come to be derided by some English writers \a singularly futile. T'ue -i Mark Lane Express," in commenting upon a case in which a purchaser was persuaded to •live over £000 for 12 cows (less than Mr. Morton's heifers fetched), denounces the '' whole tl.injjas a mania, an absurdity, which no practical man of business would be justified in touuehing," and all this on the ground that " in less t'lan two years three of the six died, two were killed, and two mote wen; sold at something less thaii a teuth of wb.it they cost ashopeleaslv barren." At a meeting of the Suffolk Kintioi'd' Club, held m February lust, a great authority, in lecturing ou •' Profitable Farming," spoke in much the samo strain. He said : — "' Shorthorns eat an enormous quantity ot food, and jield but little in return, unless it finds its way to market surreptitiously. Fancy a joint off a beast that has a calf cost <£103 !" Now there is absolutely no force whate\er in this kind of argument. No one ever thinks of cutting high-priced pedigree cattle into joints, any more than he would think of taking ten guinea prize canaries in a pie. These animals fetch high prices on accouut of certain valuable qualities which they possess, and which they are presumed to have the power of transmitting to a numerous offspring. Whether they consume an enormous quantity of food, as alleged, we do not know for certain, but the general impression among farmers is that they consume less than inferior beasts in comparison with the meat they yield. If they do consume more, i say to the extent of 10 per cent, of what consequence is that when they I are worth ten or twenty times as much to sell ? The " Mark Lane Express " makes a grievous lament over the case I of the speculator who paid £6000 for twelve cows, and did not do well with them. But hia misfortunes prove nothing. All business transactions that are undertaken with a view f> j large profits, aud Ehat on the whole ! yield large profits, are in their nature precarious ; but the losses which are incurred by one operator are more than balanced by the profits of others. Speculators must take their chance. If tliey lose one year, they will probably gain the next, and the next after that. To pick out an isolated case of extremely bad luck, and generalise from it, can only lead to false conclusions. Again, some of these newly-arisen critics of the system of high breeding and high prices seem to think that when a £1000 bull dies, or a £600 cow proves barren, the amount of their respective prices is lost to the country. No sucl inference is admissible. The death of a prize bull only represents the loss of what ifc cost to produce him — only a little more than a bullock of the aam.3 weight would have cost. In the case of the barren cow there is probably no loss at all to the cotnmuni.y, since she will atill fuh-h ail that s ! ie cost her breeder in the meat marked It is true that the owner of the bull at the time of his death, and the owner of the cow at the time when she proved barren, " will incur heavy loss, but this is a mere incident of the business in which t'.ey were engaged. The country will have lost little or nothing, since the breeders of the animals have previously gained by the «dle of them nearly all tuat iLe lodL — all lut, tsuj, £50 iv the ea&e of tie bull, and £10 m the ;;abe of die

cow. Jf certain English agricultural writers held sounder economical views, the high prices now ruling for imported stock would not excite fault-finding, but would be regarded in the old country ay we regard it here, naiaelv, as a matter for great and unmixed satisfaction.