SHROPSHIRE SHEEP.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 70454, 3 October 1900, Page 4

SHROPSHIRE SHEEP.

One of the lessons of the Boyal Show is that the Shropshire promises to become the sheep of the Victoria farmer. Their numbers at our great show are steadily increasing, and no other breed attract anything like as much attention as do the handsome Shrops. This sheep has been described as a rent-paying and mort-gage-lifting sheep. To my mind not the least of its advantages' is its remarkably handsome appearance. It is an excellent thing when a husbandman is in love with his stock, for there is then a better chance that they will receive good treatment, and in good treatment is comprised nearly all that is necessary to ensure success in live stock husbandry. The Australian stud flocks of Shropshire sheep have been started well. In nearly every instance the foundation sheep were the best examples of the breed that money could purchase in the old country. I have occasionally Been sheep sold as stud Shropshires that were unmistakable crosses. Such sheep do not turn out well, and they serve to give the breed a bad name. It should be the business of the breeders of pure studs to make every endeavour to put a stop to this practice, which is by no means of rare occurrence. At the Boyal Show there was a really fine display of Shrops, but many of the animals shown had been so pampered and barberised that sheep-farmers knew not what to make of them. The3e arts of the sheep-feeder and wool-dresser do not impose upon any judge of sheep, but they lead to a false conclusion on the part of the ordinary sheep-farmsr. The Shropshire is too good and too useful a sheep to be injured by over-coddling and artificial manipulation of the fleece, and the sooner these misleading arts are put an end to the better it will be for the breed. — "Bruni," in the Australasian.