New Zealand's Sheep

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31215, 12 November 1966, Page 4

New Zealand's Sheep

The Sixty Million Muster. By Temple Sutherland. A. H. and A. W. Reed. 220 pp. and Index. »

Sheep, to a town-dweller at any rate, are rather dull animals, and all-important as they are to the economy of New Zealand, seem to lack character and have few if any endearing or interesting qualities which would make them a suitable subject for a book. It was not without misgivings that this reviewer began reading Temple Sutherland’s latest work: an attempt, as he says, to give “New Zealand’s most import-

ant inhabitant a more prominent place in the literature of the country.” Misgivings evaporated in the first few pages. Here again are the delightful easy writing, the dry humour, the gentle irony so evident in “The Golden Bush” and “Green Kiwi.” To obtain his information Mr Sutherland made a pilgrimage by car and caravan, starting at the top of the North Island. As he worked his way south he made many side trips to call at sheep stations, small farms, stud farms, wool stores, freezing works, transport companies’ headquarters, aerial topdressing firms and so on, seeing sheep in all environments from the lush pastures of the Manawatu to the brown pad- ; docks of the Mackenzie Coun try and the grim high country of the South Island. And everywhere Mr Sutherland asked questions. The replies, to which have been added little pieces of autobiography and a lot of local history and legend garnered from many sources, make a fascinating description of New Zealand’s paramount industry’. Facts and figures have been so ski! fully woven into the narrative that one absorbs them almost without knowing it. Mr Sutherland may rest assured that he has indeed given sheep a prominent place in our literature. This would be an excellent book to send overseas to friends and relatives, and the many thousand New Zealanders who are not concerned with farming could read it with profit, finding it not only informative but pleasant and charming reading. The photographs, in colour and black and white, are first class.