EXPORT OF LAMBS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8544, 26 July 1893, Page 3

EXPORT OF LAMBS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. •Sir, —In your 'leader of yesterday, commeiitiog upon Mr Peter Cunningham's very instructive returns of our frozen.meat trade, you draw attention to the small export, of lambs from the North Island, which you appear to think a new feature. I would point out that the North Island has never been a large exporter of lambs. She has, however, sent away 25,023 more during the past half-year than during the corresponding period last year. You express surprise at this, considering the short, mild winter and early spring; but this mildness of climate together, with its moistness is responsible for the small outpnt of lambs by the 'Northern sheep farmers. Sheep ■ naturally thrive beat under dry conditions, and almost all their diseases are traceable to exposure .to too much moisture, either in their food or overhead and underfoot; this is especially bo with the younger stock. It is under these conditions that the lambs in many districts of the North Island are aucumned and wintered, the natural consequence being that, their systems being weakened by the watery food, they fall an easy prey to the parasitic worms with which all heavily etocked moist pastures are more or less infested. The mortality in lambs and weaners sometimes reaches 20 per cent., and there is great difficulty in getting the remainder over their first winter and out of danger, j There are, of course, come districts, notably in Hawke's Bay, where the lambs are as healthy as ours. The difficulty in rearing ] their young stock is the greatest'trouble the Northern sheep farmers have to face, but I should the climate change as the bush is cleared she will be found exporting as much as or more than we do, for she is fast gaining upon us in numbers''of sheep. The most striding feature to my mind, in Mr Cunningham's statistics for the past, year, is that while, as your correspondent •' J. T. M," showed last week, Canterbury has an increase of 300,000 sheep this year, she has in the same period, after feeding herself, exported 761,813 sheep and lambs. With such a record, sir, I would, but for one thing, join with you in saying " the splendid output of lambs speaks trumpet-tongned for the care and skill acd management of our sheep breeders." Unfortunately, to reverse the proverb, "there is a cloud to every silver lining." While we are exulting over the quantity and quality of the lambs that we export, are we not killing the goose that lays the golden egg—the earliest maturing of our ewe lambs, whicb should be reserved for the better destiny of becoming the mothers of our future flocks and of upholding that prestige which we are fast losing? The effect of this suicidal policy, which has often been condemned by you, is already being seen in the saleyards, and felt elsewhere, for it has been recently predicted in the Weekly Press that before long we shall be importing ewes from the North Island. I sincerely hope not. Rather would I see our Legislature pass a Noxious Waste Bill, the chief feature of which should be the preservation of our best and strongest ewe lambs from the freezing chamber.—-Yours, &c, Reginald Foster. ' Camtchurch, 25th July, 1893.