CROP AND FLOCK PROSPECTS IN CANTERBURY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3425, 16 December 1896, Page 2

CROP AND FLOCK PROSPECTS IN CANTERBURY.

At the quarterly meeting of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce on Saturday, the President, in the course of his address, stated that the outlook. for the Canterbury farmers was most promising. -There was a larger area than usual in grain, and it was looking well, and the lambing on the whole had been most satisfactory. Where shearing had been completed the returns were good, and the wool in good condition. Extended provision was being made for autumn and winter feed. With ordinary weather there should be a large output of sheep and lambs from the freezing works. Touching upon the frozen meat trade, he did net think the shipment of so large a quantity of lambs was tending towards deteriorating our flocks, as most of the lambs shipped are bred especially^ for that purpose, and are fattened with foods growth for that purpose. If there were no fat -lamb trade these lambs would not be produced, nor would the foods be grown; and further there were large areas of land in Canterbury which could not produce fat lambs, but which could and did produce sufficient good-constitutioned and properly-bred ewes with which to replenish the flocks for the areas which required them for producing freezing lambs. While such is the case, and if farmers and grazers only remembered that "The best pays best," there need be no fear as to Canterbury maintaining the lamb trade without deteriorating its flocks. .