Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1910. FAULTY WOOL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10128, 26 October 1910, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1910. FAULTY WOOL.

j In the Age of October 21st, there appeared a quotation from a letter received in Sydney from a Boston wool-broker, bemoaning the increasi ing faultiness of New Zealand RomI ney Marsh wool, particularly as to its harshness and bad quality at the tip, and the consequent difficulty to spin it. Notwithstanding the assertion that the high price obtained for this class of wool by Dominion growers is used to combat the above statement, the fact remains that similar complaints have been voiced from other sources. The want of quality in Roinney and other cross-wools is no doubt on the increase, particularly among many of the small flocks, and even in some instances among the larger ones. Rom ney sheep have become the "vogue" in the North Island, and no sheep is more prone to produce "komp," or hair fibre, and this tendency becomes more intensified when Romney sires are mated with all sorts of nondescript mongrel ewes—a practice which obtains- on only too many holdings. In many cases the Roinney rams are lacking in the quality of crimpiness which is such an essential in good spinning ' wool. With some farmers the sole consideration appears to be the desire to breed for mutton, and to treat wool as quite a secondary matter. With proper attention and the requisite knowledge, both'objects could be obtained. Some writers, whose contributions appear regularly in the New Zealand weekly journals, draw attention to the breaking up of some of the large flocks of the Dominion, brought about through the cutting up of large estates for close settlement, as a factor which tends to lower the quality a great deal of the New Zealand wool. In addition to this, many men who have taken' .up land of late years are without experience in the principles of breeding, and .up-to-date, methods'of sheep husbandry, and do not seem to realize that good, well-bred, well-woolled sheep, cost no - ?~r? to feed than ill—-

conditioned, weak constituted scrubs. Anyone attending the stock sales may discern that this is the case.