NEW SHEEPFARM EXPERIMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3184, 1 April 1911, Page 9

NEW SHEEPFARM EXPERIMENTS.

ELECTRICITY FOR SHEEP"

We,are used to looking to America for a lead in all directions of scientific production, and,.says the ',‘Pastoralists’ Review" during iate years Burbank and others have shown us how by selection and crossing we may develop our crops, and get three tomaioes or apples where one grew- formerly, and so on. Also, we are told that electricity has been made to act in a remarkable manner in the growth of cereals and 1 other crops, but few of us were prepared to learn that electricity, by its action on plant life, was going to develop the growth of sheep flocks by increasing the percentage of lambs and' wool. Yet. it is now claimed, according to our American correspondent, that on a sbeepfarm in California, by passing an electric current- of moderate strength over wires spread over the pasture, a great increase in the percentage of lambs and the quantity of wool has resulted. This should surely be good l new r s for our pastoralists. \No longer need they fear the grim drought or the enterprising bunny, and such like. Instead of utilising the water for irrigation purposes from places like Bnrrenjuck, it can be made to produce electric energy on a large scale, and sold to the pastoralists for power purposes; Fencing wire and the electric current will do the rest. Sheep can be mustered into the home padocks, the current turned on. and literally the happy / pastoralist will only need to sit upon a fence and see his sheep grow before his eyes. Problems of breeding will disappear, and the great subject of discussion will be the question of how many thousand sheep to the acre can be fed 1 on a current of, 400 volts, whether high or low tension will produce the greatest number of lambs per winter, and how many pounds of wool extra per sheep can be produced by the adoption of the. X-ray. Under these conditions, of course, the station ram will become a thing of the past, or perhaps, instead, it may be found that by concentrating all the electric current upon him or his feeding ground, the same results may be obtained. Further developments will be anxiously awaited.