PLAN FAILS

Hokitika Guardian, 8 July 1935, Page 7

PLAN FAILS

SOVIET MOULTING OF SHEEP. The All-Union Cattle Breeding Institute of Russia has decided to abandon its plain to collect wool by the artificial moulting of sheep and “other fur-bearing animals.” which was to supersede the ancient method of shearing them. In the course of little more than a year, writes the Riga correspondent of the Times, Prolessor Ilyin, author of the plan, was granted 1,000,003 roubles for experimenting on a large scale, and a programme was made to establish a “sheep and rabbit moulting section” on the “Great State Farm.”

The process was devised in 1C32, when it was claimed by Soviet experts that by administering certain “heavy chemicals” and subjecting rabbits and sheep to alterations of atmospheric temperature, the scientific farmer could make animals grow fleeces of any desired shade between black and white. A special dose would induce them to slice! their coats at three days’ notice, which would be “peeled off” in compact fleeces. The animals would, urnreover t grow and yield up to as many as four fleeces a year. Professor Ilyin still maintains that this can all he done, but there is one drawback with which lie has not yet been able to cope ; the medicine which causes the moulting has a detrimental effect on the health of the animals. Three veal's ago, when the Soviet press announced that artificial moulting was to be immediately introduced as the regular practice in Russia, British and other foreign scientists applied to the institute for information on the subject. but they were informed with some rudeness that the moulting process and the chemicals used wore a State secret which would not be allowed to go to capitalist countries. Tile Soviet press now states that the chief chemical used is gallium. Professor Ilyin's grant this year has been cut down to one-fifth of his former grant, but lie will still experiment in the laboratory in order to find an antidote to the “toxic aefien’’ of gallium on moulting animals.