BIG SHEEP TREK

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 7, 10 January 1938, Page 8

BIG SHEEP TREK

The great annual sheep trek from Poverty Bay and East Coast districts to the Waikato began this week, and it is estimated that upwards of 250,000 breeding ewes will have been sent northward by the end of March, states the Auckland "Star." Thousands of sheep- will be transported by. road, and will be concentrated in Taneatua and Tauranga before distribution to the Waikato stock centres. The Richardson Line ship Pakura. which annually handles a large number of sheep, has left Auckland for Tokomaru Bay to load the first shipment of the present season. Working Gisborne, Hicks Bay, Tokomaru Bay, and Tolaga Bay, the Pakura will have carried more than 50,000 sheep by the end of next month. She will make regular visits to Tauranga and Auckland, and most of her tripr will be to the Bay of Plenty port. Indications are that the great stock trek last year from the East Coast will be equalled in the coming months. However, the possibility of continued dry weather, with its restriction on pasture growth, is exercising the minds of Waikato farmers in considering the purchase of sheep. Against this factor is an increase in mixed farming, with a growing proportion of sheep and cattle.