RESPONSIBILITY FOR ROMNEY BREEDERS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29535, 9 June 1961, Page 19

RESPONSIBILITY FOR ROMNEY BREEDERS

I New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL Jure 8. “Who knows, but one day the national emblem of New Zealand might be the Romney sheep instead of a flightless bird.” said the president (Mr J. R. Matthews, of Featherston) in his address to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Romney Marsh Sheep Breeders' Association today. “We must forge ahead with this breed of ours,” he said. "It is on the wool and meat of the sheep that New Zealand depends for two-thirds of its overseas earnings. By far the greater majority of the 48 million sheqp in New Zealand are Romneys. I understand it is 75 per cent." Romney breeders, said Mr Matthews, had a “very real national responsibility" to develop and strengthen the Romney breed still further. The Romney was a model which many would like to be able to equal or improve if they could. "This Is the reason for the many attempts to Improve our sheep by way of cross breeding.’’ said Mr Matthews. "But the sheep men of New Zealand,” he Said, “know only too well the pitfalls and disasters that befall those who try to build cross breeds aS a substitute for the Romney

which, in Its New Zealand setting, is indisputably the world's finest dual-purpose sheep. Other breeds,, said Mr Matthews, had in the short history of the sheep industry, come and gone, but the Romney breed remained. It had been brought to the high standard it enjoyed at present by the hard work and initiative of the early Romney breeders. “It is up to us to maintain and improve this sheep which means so much to the economy of our country.” Mr Matthews said. Cross Breeding . Earlier in his report. Mr Matthews said the association executive had been invited to meet the New Zealand Wool Board which had expressed concern at the amount of cross breeding that was being carried out with detrimental effect cn the New . Zealand wool clips. The Wool Board contended, said .Mr Matthews, that cross breeding war being brongh* about by the falling off of lambing percentages in pure Romney flocks. Soon after this it was decided to set up a survey committee to invesfi’ate aspects of disease, breeding, feed'ng and management with particular reference to fertility and the dry ewe problem which had been worrying stud and crossbred flocks in the North Island for some years and was finding its wav in the South Island. The Original idea was for a five-vear survey, but the association was quite sure that it would extend for a much longer period, in fact, indefinitely.