THE MERINO IN VICTORIA.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 11, Issue 819, 19 January 1867, Page 3

THE MERINO IN VICTORIA.

./'/.-/..> (From the Australasian.) THE MBBBK9. CUMMINGS* &HEEP, AN» MODE ■ ::]•-:■'•■: OF GETTING UP THEIR WOOL. The desire for information as to how these gentlemen manage to obtain such high prices, for their wool being so very general, probably this portion of my communications will be read with more interest than any cjjtber. Although each, has now in his own Statidri,— - Mr. John Cumming, Terinallum, Mr; ; William Cumming, Mount Fyans South, Mr. George Cumming, Mount Fyans North* and Mr. Thomas Cumming, Stony Pomt — it will be convenient to speak of them and what they have done for the most part collectively, as when not actually in partnership they have always worked in unison towards one common end, and have thus managed to reach the top of the tree, and by attending closely to their own business to become public benefactors, for public benefactors they are, both for showing what the Australian merino may be brought to, and what our wool may be made to fetcn in the London market. Not famous for having better sheep than the settlers around, and able to take but few prizes at the shows in competition with them, they yet become all of a sudden distinguished for obtaining higher prices than Victorian wool has ever fetched before, and the question naturally asked is — How has this been done ? They did not hold a high position as breeders of rams, have iiot been- buyers of imported sheep at exorbitant rates, in short, were little known beyond their own district, and in that principally as excellent neighbours, and as painstaking and judicious admirers of the Australian merinos, when they suddenly excite the wonder and admiration of the settlers, not only in Victoria, but in all the colonies near, by getting from twenty-five to fifty pet cent, higher for their wool than do those, who are supposed to have equally good sheep, and from; ten to twenty per cent, more than is obtained for wool of the sheep by which their flocks were believed to have been improved. Some said that this was purely an accident, some that the wool was got up so as to lose half its weight,, others again, that 1 the top prices were only realised for a few bales of closely sorted wool ; but the . facts remained; that 4s l^d per pound was obtained for wool from one station, 4s Id for several bales of wool from two of the other brothers' stations, and the general average was higher than had before been dreamt of, so the explanations were unsatisfactory. The truth is, as we shall see presently, that the sheep were good, producing wool of peculiar softness and brightness of staple, and that this was got up in the best possible manner, so there was no accident, but a . knowledge of the wants of the day and ability to meet them, the latter resulting from a long and careful preparation. In the first place as to the sheep. These' are true Australian merinos, without any admixture of foreign blood for many generations past. Many years ago Messrs. William and George Cumming commenced improving the sheep at Stony Point, the station first in possession of this family, and had very good sheep there before they purchased Mount Fyans, in 1856, and removed thither. This gave them greater scope for selection and the classification of their ewes, as they found good sheep, there also, the descendants of the original flock brought overland from New South Wales by Mr. Mackinnon. Their object has always been the production of long combing wool, as soft and fine as they could get it, and to the ewes thus selected they put the most suitable rams to be obtained in the district and from Tasmania. In 1853 they got from Mr. Currie a number of Mount Hope rams, which he had used for a couple of years, and so highly did they value the Camden blood, that they did not part with these again. No foreign blood was ever introduced into these flocks, and for several years past no rams have been used except those bred on the station. To selection alone have they trusted, as they have found that in this way they can best maintain and extend amongst the general flock the desired points of excellence. Selection has always been the guiding principle, and has been applied to all ages and both sexes alike, even to the wedders. All objectionable animals are weeded out and got rid of, uniformity being thus approached more nearly every year. Although the Mount Fyans run has been divided into two parts, and the Stoney Point Station has become the property of Mr. Thomas Cumming, the same system. has been pursued with all three flocks, and they consequently preserve precisely the same character. Mr, John Cumming purchased the Terinallum. ttm vi 1857- and. witk. it lie £9^ 9R9 of the besfc flocks of sheep, as a whole, in this part of ths country. The run was first taken up by Messrs. Lang and Elms, but was soon after sold to the Clyde Company, whose rn.au.ager on ifc, Mr. Cameron, now of Latimer, was a first-rate judge of both sheep and wool. While under his care the Terinallum flock was very much improved by the use of rams from New South Wales, so that it consisted pretty much of Australian merinos, when it fell into the hands of Mr. John Cumming. Since then he has used rams from the flocks of Messrs. Learmonth, Currie, and Shaw, and has also obtained a strong infusion of the Camden blood by the use of rams from the Warrumbine flock, long before the Steiger blood was introduced into it. Mr. Curaming not being satisfied at one time that the removal of undesirable qualities might not be effected more quickly than by selection and culling, experimented a little with foreign blood, and purchased one of Rich's New Zealand rams, as well as one of long pedigree and high lineage from Hesse Cassel, but no sooner were the progeny of these, of an age to testify to the qualifications of their sires, than the first was declared to be a take in, "Old Shakespear" notwithstanding, and the latter has ' since been doomed to "waste his sweetness on the desert air." Mr. Cumming has thus given in his adherence to the belief that the Australian merino is not to be improved upon, and has now for many years selected ramsfrom his own flock. And as to the wool produced by these sheep,, ifc is long, strong, soft, silky, and bright, and what more can be said in its favour. In all save, one of those qualities ■ plenty of the wool shorn in this part of the country equals it, but nowhere have I seen such bright fleeces as in the sheds of Terinallum and Mount Fyans., At other places the t sh,eep are washed in precisely the same : ; minner, as much ■ soap and soda used, and y/t^jwatcjcjis as good, but although the wool :v|jp^,^.f' l^u^ajia"h-'niepioo.'lias.a decided towards, brightness of staple, no-

where else have I seen it partaking so much of the lustrous quality. And to what this is due it is hard to say. Certainly the runs are exceedingly good, the stony rises being always dry and affording the sheep a bite through the summer, and they are not overstocked, but there are other runs equally good upon which this peculiar brightness is not to be found. Then the sheep are of precisely the same strains of blood as many other flocks around them, so there is no apparent reason for their differing in this one respect. But differ they do, and doubtless it is this comparatively trifling difference which causes their wool to fetch the highest prices. We are not here well up in regard to lustre wools, having had so little to do with them as yet, but there is in some of these fleeces a tinge of almost blue, Which indicates their superiority in this respect, and becomes very apparent when they are placed alongside of fleeces equally well washed and of snowy whiteness, but deficient in lustre. Without a certain glossiness and semi-transparenc) r , the very whitest of wool will not show the most delicate of dyes and of brilliant colours to the best advantage. It may be as soft as silk, and almost as strong, 'but the manufacturers, not content with the vast improvement in this one direction, are beginning to look for it nearly as bright. To the Messrs. Cumming is mainly due the credit of using the soap and soda in proportions which were formerly thought to be absolutely injurious, but are now found indispensably requisite in the new mode of spout washing. Both have of course, been used since warm water was first tried for the washing of sheep and the scouring of wool after being taken oft their backs, but with great care and in very small proportions, as it was supposed that much of either, of the soda especially, would make the wool harsh and brittle. When first warm water came to be used in connexion with spouts, a small quantity of soap was put in it, and when the water was at all hard a little soda, to prevent the curdling of the soap, but with fear and , trembling, as the authorities were against it, until Mr. George Curaming, determining to put the question to the test, commenced a couple of years ago to use soda at the rate of about a hundredweight to the thousand sheep, as well as an equal quantity of soap, and found that the wool, in consequence of his so doing, came out very much whiter and brighter, and was not at all harsh to the touch. This is now the recognised proportion when the water is hard and the sheep dirty ; but the full quantity of neither is used when the sheep are tolerably clean and without hard tips or much dry yolk in their wool, and not so much soda when the water is soft. The water at Mount Fyans is rather hard, being supplied mostly from springs, while the water at Terinallum is all from the surface and quite soft ; but even there where I saw the sheep being washed the other day, 20lbs. of soda and 16lbs. of soap were added to each soaking-pen full of warm water, about 1300 gallons. The soakingpen at Mount Fyans South holds rather more water, and rather more soap and soda are usually put each time into it, but the quantities vary according to the condition of the sheep to be washed, and the general allowance is as before stated. Plenty of soap and soda to the warm water appears to soften the dirt so thoroughly that it is at once dashed off by the water from the spouts. And that this mode of washingdoes not reduce the weight of the wool so much as is commonly supposed, or else that these sheep produce very heavy fleeces, is proved by the average weight obtained. Great interest is felt on this point, and Mr. William Cumming very kindly gave me particulars of the weight of his clip, and the money returns obtained for it last year, for the information of the public. The number of sheep shorn by him was 18,113, and of lambs 7209, and the average weight of wool from both was 2lb. 13oz. per head. This realised 2s. lOd. per lb. all round, locks and pieces included, so that the average money return per head was Bs. all but the fraction of a penny. Eight shillings a head is a splendid return from both sheep and lambs, especially when the number of the latter is so large, and does not make it appear that spout washing can be an unprofitable mode of getting up wool. Thi3 return is not given because it wa3 better than those from the other three stations, but because it was the first asked for, and all are so much in results that one alone was needed. The fleeces at Terinallum are fully as heavy, if not heavier, than at Mount Fyans, in corroboration of which I may say that the fleeces of two lambs, and not very large ones either, shorn while I was in the shed, appearing to tie unusually heavy, they were weighed, and proved to be respectively 2lb. Boz. and 21b. 13oz. These were, not approaching a year old but lambs of the season, and such a weight of wool from pure merinos of their age, -and such an average as was obtained from the other flock, would not seem to indicate any degeneracy from the want of fresh blood. And even if the wool loses as much in weight when thus scoured on the sheeps' backs as it does in the scouring when off them, about fifty per cent., or one-half, when the sheep are not very dirty, surely it is far profitable to get the wool xip so than to send it to market either in the grease or what is commonly called brookwashed. But we scarcely know what the effect of sending home wool in such condition may be, for the manufacturers are not used to it, and they will most probably find this bright, clear combing wool of the finest quality so valuable to them, that the competition for it will become every year greater, and the price comparatively higher than that of either unwashed, half washed, and scoured wool. However this may be, the few figures given above ought to convince everyone that these top prices must pay the best, and that ifc is Well worth everyone's while to aim at obtaining them. As a matter of course, the Messrs. Cumming all have good washing-places, and that at Mount Fyans South is the best I have seen in my travels. In the first place the reservoir is a noble sheet of water, in fact a small lake, of such extent that the use of three spouts through the season, and any quantity of water besides for flushing out the pens and yards and keeping everything about the place, clean, does not lower the level six inches. Being supplied partly from springs the water is hard, but the abundance of it compensates for this. The dam is high enough to give plenty of fall, and is most substantial, with iron pipes laid through it. These are fitted with valves, and are respectively six and nine inches in diameter, the .first being found quite too

small for the supply of the spouts. The Wash itself is on the b3St possible because the most simple plan, and the work is all straightforward. At the end of the usual series of narrow yards is the catching-pen, an octagon, holding some twenty sheep, with a shoot at one side, through which they are let down into the soaking-pen. This is lift. 6in. long by 4ft. 6in. wide, and is about 4ft. in the deepest part. A few inches from the bottom is a grating, to allow the sand, and heavy dirt to pass through and settle, and the pen contains about 1,400 gallons. There is a board across the centre to keep the lots of sheep separate, and at the opposite end to that into which they go first a battened incline leading up to the standing place from which three shoots take them under the three spouts as required. The battened way from the water has a division for each spout, so that if any sheep should be hurried through or imperfectly washed it can at once be seen who is to blame. After the first temporary stoppage the sheep go into a very long battened yard, in which they stand until thoroughly drained. If possible, they would be kept on battens until shorn; but the best way to avoid smut, and even dust, is found to be to keep them in very small paddocks. The smut grass is all over the plains, and can scarcely be avoided this year, but of course, if fed down closely, there can be no smut, and it does not seem to'grow again ,in small paddocks that have been heavily stocked. There is no preparatory sprinkling here, as the sheep, when previously wetted, are found to reduce the temperature of the water in the soakingpen too quickly, but a man gives any with black tips or otherwise requiring it a rub with a scrubbing-brush and soap while in the soaking-pen. The boiler is alongside of the latter ; in short, everything is placed as conveniently as it well can, be, and no time or labour is lost in getting through -with the work. Mr. George Cumming is now putting up a washing-place on the same plan but still more compact, as it will be altogether covered in by a roof twentysix feet by nine. The washing-place at TerinaUumis a most substantial affair, of cut stone and solid masonry, but it was built too soon, when long swims were the fashion, and has had to be altered in a temporary manner with wood to meet present requirements. That at Stony Point I did not see, as a want of sufficient water in the reservoir has prevented the use of the spouts there this year. Thus the sheep have to be washed in the old style, after a preliminary soak in warm water and soap, and doubtless even this involuntary and partial return to first principles will be equally unsatisfactory to both the mind and. pocket of the proprietor. As time presses, I must here end my jottings about the Skipton flocks, representing as they do so well the Australian merinos, and betake me to the dwellings of the unorthodox breeders who live farther west, and see what they have done in the way of mending or marring their flocks by the introduction and free use of foreign blood.