NOTES FOR GRAZIER AND DEALER.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9814, 25 August 1897, Page 2

NOTES FOR GRAZIER AND DEALER.

•'Weekly Press and Referee."

By Straggler,

London advices indicate that shippers of live stock from tbe Argentine to the Old Country arc not having by any means a rosy time of it. Recent shipments have been haul to dispose of even at low prices, and the chances are that this class of trade will vapidly decrease in volume.

I gather from advices from London that there is every prospect of improvement in the mutton market there during tho month oF September. Should a prophecy in this direction prove true it will come as a particularly pleasant incident to many growers and speculators.

That extra heavy sheep are rapidly going out of fashion was made woefully apparent at Addington last week, when it was almost impossible to get bids for heavy wethers. A drop of from 10s to 15s a head on this class of sheep from this time last year is indeed a big fall.

Several lots of heavy wethers which had been sent up from Southland for the National market met the full force of the adverse conditions just alluded to, and naturally the owners found the position a little hard to realise.

The percentage of sheep scab in various parts of Great Britain has at length aroused the attention of the National Sheep Breeders, Association, which has passed a resolution to the effect that prompt measures should be taken to stamp out the disease, and that in order to secure uniformity of action a memorial upon the subject be forwarded to the president of the Board of Agriculture. It was pointed out that pedieree registered stud flocks were believed to be entirely free from the disease and what was proposed was in order to eradicate it from the flocks of graziers and others.

The Line Stock Journal states that Mr Ernest F. Jordan, Easlburn, Driffield, Yorks, has sold one of the first-prize pens of five Leicester rams at the Royal Show at Manchester in June last, to be exported to Timaru, New Zealand. The name of the purchaser is not given.

Mr G. G. Stead has purchased in England two stud Shropshire ram lambs to be added to his already excellent flock at Droraore.

The champion short-horn bull at the Royal Show, held at Manchester in June last, Master Recorder, a two-year-old, has been sold for 500gs to go to Buenos Ayres.

It is reported in an Australian exchange that extensive shipments of fat sheep are being made from Victoria to Western Australia. At the end of last month the steamer Colac sailed from Melbourne with 3600 large prime crossbreds on board, bound for Perth. On August 4th best crossbred wethers were bringing in the Flemington market 18s to 255, and best merino wethere 15s to 19s 2d, so that meat must be fairly dear in Western Australia.