HALF-BRED WOOL

Evening Star, Issue 19520, 30 March 1927, Page 11

HALF-BRED WOOL

QUESTION OF QUALITY Mr Banks Rollings, dealing with the decrease of merinos in New Zealand in the ‘Pastoral Review,’ writes: —It has frequently been remarked that New Zealand is turning out_ less and less half-bred wool, and that is certain to bo a result of a decrease in the merino flocks. I have contended_ for many years, that well-bred Corriodale wool of good 56’s quality (Corriodale sheep should grow that quality and no lower) is going to take the place of half-bred wool from New Zealand. Here, again, w© have a big subject looming up both before wool growers and wool users. What constitutes a half-bred wool? What quality should it he; and what nro its outstanding characteristics? These questions rise spontaneously as wo dictate this article. Every question well deserves a chapter to itself, for there is a wealth of real instruction behind every one. To-day we will ho content with saying that half-bred wool occupies a very unique position in tho markets of the world, and is very Highly appreciated. When one speaks of Now Zealand half-hreds they can be anything from 50’s to 66’s, just according to which side of the cross tho sheep has taken after. Everybody knows that a half-bred sheep that leans toward the side of the mother—i.e., merino ewe, is going to produce a nice 56’s fleece, hut if that half-bred sheep leans toward the side of the male, bo it a_ Lincoln or a Leicester cross, the quality is going to he no more than 50’s.

We are fraid that during recent years tho term “quality” has not been' so much appreciated by Now Zealand pastcralists as it ought to be. It may have lost some of its meaning to sheep breeders throughout the dominion, hut not to wool buyers. Quality is still tho most valuable characteristic of all wool, and it ever will ho. _ Let no reader think that woo! that is lacking in this will be in demand like wool that is full of quality and real good character.