Freight Costs Prohibit Export Of N.Z. Sheep To America

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23028, 19 August 1949, Page 6

Freight Costs Prohibit Export Of N.Z. Sheep To America

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, Aug. 18. America, seeking to increase her sheep population by 20,000,000, wants to buy thousands of New Zealand sheep for breeding, but the high sea freight makes the cost prohibitive.

“If only we could overcome tiffs barrier and make some arrangement you would get an awful lot of dollar’s,” said Professor Eugene Bcrtone, an American wool specialist, when he arrived in Auckland today in the Matson freighter Sierra. Professor Bcrtone has been commissioned to buy 2000 Corriedale sheep in New Zealand “if the price is right” for Hartsel Ranch, Colorado. He is attached to the Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical Arts College experimental station and is bound for Sydney to study wool and sheep methods of production, marketing and grading. “I am breaking the trip to visit Christchurch and see the sheep farming first in this country, he said. “1 hope to be able to get sheep here we want for breeding back home, but it will depend a lot on the price, particularly freight charges. The same applies to Australia. One ram we recently bought in Australia cost over 150 dollars for freight.” A crated sheep from New Zealand to America costs 75 dollars and an uncrated sheep 38 dollars. The United States sheep population had dropped from a normal 50.000,000 to about 30,000,000. Now Zealand crossbred were the ideal type for American ranges.