MERINO SHEEP.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 7, 16 February 1867, Page 1 (Supplement)

MERINO SHEEP.

[Abridged from the Australasian.]

The extracts are made from a very full Recount of the sheep breeding and management on Messers Cummings stations. These are true Australian merinos, without any admixture of foreign blood for many generations past. Their object has always been the production of long combing wool, as soft and fine a? they sonld "get it, and to the ewes thus selected they put the most suitable rams, to be obtained in the district and from Tasmania. It 1833 they got from Mr. Currie a number of Mount Hope rams, which he had used for a couple of rears, and so highly did they value the Cameden blood, that they did not part with these again. Xo foreign blood was ever introduced into these flocks, and for several years past no rams have been used except those bred on the station. To selection alone have they trusted, as they have found that in this way they can best maintain and extend amongst the general flock the desired points of excellence. Selection has always been the guiding principle, and has been applied to all ages and both sexes alike even to the wedders. Selection, if it means anything, is in and in breeding so thorougly condemned by the great majority of breeders; but we think the following propositions cannot bedisproved. Ifdisease can be bred by selection so can health—if diformety can be propagated so can beauty of form or any thing else, on either side being a consequence of breeding. Mr. Gumming not being satisfied at one time that the removal of undesirable qualities might not be effected more quickly than by selection and culling, experminted a little with foreign blood, and purchased one of Rich’s Xew Zealand rams, as well as one of long pedigree and high lineage from Hesse Cassel, hut no sooner were the progeny of these of au age to testify to the qualifications of their sires, than the first was declared to be taken in. “ Old Shakespear ” notwithstanhing’ and the latter has since been doomed to “ waste his sweetness on the desert air.” Mr. Gumming has thus given in his adherence to the belief that the Australian merino is not to be improved unon, and has now for many years selected rams from his own flock.

And as to the wool produced by these sheep, it is long, strong soft, silky, and bright, and what more can be said in its favour. In all save one of those qualities plenty of the wool shorn in this part of the country equals it, but nowhere have I seen such bright fleeces as in the sheds of Terinallum and Mount Fyans. At other places the sheep are washed in precisely the same manner, as much soap and soda used, and the water is as good, but although the wool of the Australian merm has a decided tendancy towards brightness of staple, no where else have I seen it partaking so much of the lustrous quality.

When first warm water came to be used in connexion with spouts, a small quantity of soap was put in it, and when the water was at all hard a little soda, to prevent the curding of the-soap, but with fear and trembling, as the authorities were against it, until Mr. George Gumming, determining to put the question to the test, commenced a couple of years to use soda at the rate of about a hund elweight to the thousand sheep, as well as an equal quantity of soap, and found that the woe!, in consequence of his so doing, came out very much whiter and brighter, and was not at all harsh to the touch. This is now the recognised proportion when the water is hard and the sheep dirty ; hut the full quantity of neither is used when the sheep are tolerably clean and without hard tips or much dry yolk in their wool, and not so much soda when the water is soft. Plenty of soap and '0 !a (o the warm water appears to soften the dirt so thoroughly that it is at once dashed off by the water from the spouts. And that this mode of whashing does not reduce the weight of the wool so much as is commonly supposed, or the that these sheep produce very he ;vv fleeces, is proved by the average weight •obtained. Great interest is felt on tnis point, and Mr. William Cnmming very kindly gave me particulars (if the weight of his clip, and the money returns obtained for it last year for the information of the public. The number of sheep shorn by him was 18,113 and oflambs 7209. and the average weight of wool from both was 2lb. 13oz. per head. This realised 2s. lod. per lb. all round, locks and pieces included, so that the averags money return per head was 8s all but the fraction of a penny. Eight shillings a head is a splendid return from both sheep and lambs, especially when the number of the latter is so large, and dose not make it appear that spout washing can he an unprofitable mode of getting up wool. This return is not given because it was better than those from the other three stations, but because it was the first asked for, and all are so much alike in result that one alone was neede’d.