AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3112, 25 June 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION.

A writer in the New Zealand Country Journal, in discussing the competition likely to arise with Australian sheep-owners in the London frozen meat trade, thus deals with the question : — "It will in all likelihood prove a vain hope if Australian sheepov/ncrs expect to relieve their enormouf. Merino flocks to any very appreciable extent, through the agency of the refrigerating chambers. A vast proportion of thoir surplus sheep would certainly consist of sheop not suitable for freezing, and moreover, if Merino mutton was forced on die English market in enormous quantities, the effect would be to depress the price to such an extent that there would be no margin of profit. There is, however, a certain amount of country in Australia fit for the production of half-breeds, and it is more than probable that atnD remote date, a considerable amount of half-bred ir.ufcton will be exported from Australia. Mr Bruce, the chief inspector of stock in New South Wales, has recently collected and published a quantity of information and statistics, bearing on the question of half-bred sheep. He has issued elaborate tables showing the comparative weight of different crosses at certain ages, together with the weight of wool to be expected, and also the value of both mutton and wool according to current prices. Officials tables, however, are not always unerring guides when they come to be worked out in practice, and it is to be faarod that those breeders who take Mr Brace's tables as infallible may in some cases be disappointed. Mr Bruce's estimates are not excessive, provided that the conditions under which the sheep are produced are of a highly favourable character, but conditions are not always favourable, and that is where bhe rub comes in. The nett result of Mr Bruce's researches may not be uninteresting to Now Zealand breedors. According to his tables, he represents the comparative value of the. different crosses as varying according to age, but in the main he exhibits the Rommey cross as being the most valuable, the Hampshire Down next, with Leicester and Lincoln crosses competing for third place. This at anyrate is not precisely the conclusion which _ New Zealand breeders, after long experience, have been led to arrive at."