CORRESPONDENCE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 258, 29 July 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

CORRESPONDENCE

Large Woolsheds Sir: I always look forward to your page, as it is easily the 'best farming page we get. In Saturday’s paper J was particularly interested in the question of the largest woolshed. On Siberia Station, about 25 miles from Hunterville, there is a big woolshed. The manager toid me he did not know how many sheep it would hold, but he had had 4000 sheep in at once, and drafted them; The 1200 we drafted one afternoon in the shed did not fill much of its space. There are two drafting races in it, but so far as the number of stands go, it is not a large shed. I think there were 16. It is quite a new shed, being built fairly recently, and I do not know the number of sheep shorn on the station. —Yours, “A.H.5.,” Poukawa, Hawke’s Bay.

Sir: AbiMit your inquiry about the size of sheds. The big South Island sheds I do not know. But your reference to the Isa shed is not quite correct. Mount Isa is the big lead and silver mine in northwest Queensland. ’ The shed you mean is Isis Downs, Central Western Queensland. Isis Downs has 52 stands (electric), built in a half circle, all stands being equidistant from the wool tables; it is an entirely iron and steel shed, floors- only being of wood, and I believe the most up-to-date shed in the Southern Hemisphere, There are two hydraulic presses, all power being generated by a steam engine. In 1934, when I saw the shed. 32 shearers had been on the board. Wellshot Station had 35 shearers, and Terrick Terrick 30 shearers that year. These three stations are all within about 150 miles of Lonerench. Mount Koola. N.S.W.. is now the biggest shed in Australia, I believe—24o.ooo sheen and 4-1 shearers. The biggest shed ever to be in Australia was in Queensland, nnd having 150 stands, I believe. I hnvo seen it mention'”!, but cannot remember the facts—Yours, “5.F.N.,” T oki rimu Tan marunni.

I have just been looking at a most interesting document, a combined pedigree and export certificate for a Leghorn cockerel which a friend of mine has recently bought from Germany, says a writer in the “Farmer and Stockbreeder.” Britain. All the particulars contained therein are stamped with the official stamp of the Reichs Geflugel-llcrdbuch—the Poultry Herd Book of the German Empire—hut it is the detail attached to the pedigree which is most interesting.

This extends back for five generations nnd the production of every hen is recorded. In each case yearly total and average weight of eggs is given and all but one or two have figures for three years. The cockerel’s dnm. for instance, hatched in 1935, laid 222, 154 and 203 eggs of nn average weight of SS, (10 and 62 grams (60 grams equals 2 l-6bz.). and there are very few.figures less than this even in connexion with first year records.