SHEEP RETURNS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10216, 9 December 1893, Page 5

SHEEP RETURNS.

[rSOM OXJB OWN COEEESPONDEKT.I WELLINGTON, Dec. 8.

I have been favoured by the Department of Agriculture with the annual sheep returns for the Colony for the year ended April 80 last. The returns, which form a State paper of 110 pages of c’oaolyprinted matter, were lard on the table of the House of Iteprosentatives in manuscript in the. expiring hours of the session, and escaped notice. Besides, the figures then were not quite exact. All corrections have sines' been made, and the printer has just finished bis work. % extract some ot the more important particulars. The number of sheep in the Colony in April, 1893, was 19,357,780, being an increase of 786,978 on the previous year, of which increase 461,064 are to be credited to the North Island and 325,914 to the South Island.

The numbers 1 of sheep in the various counties in the Canterbury - Kaikoata district on April 30 last were as follow i—' Kaikoura, 197,871, being an increase of 5387 over the previous year; Amuri, 458,626, being a decrease of 17,343 ; Cheviot, 141,910, being a decrease of 9854; Ashley, 804,364, being an increase of 42,491; Akeroa, 295,153, being an increase •of 16,288; - Selwyn, 760,410, being an increase o! 48,594; Ashburton, 901,122, being an increase of 74,005 ; Geraldine, 735.489, being an increase of 47.679; Mackenzie, 442,612, being a decrease of 10,006; Waimate, 708,812, being an increase of 41,626. * The Colony possessed 2,370.077 merino rams (f wethers) and 3,288,947 merino ewes; 4,535,761 rams (P wethers) and 9,187,584 ewes of other breeds ; 2,467,899 breeding merino ewes, and 6,293,761 breeding ewes of other breeds. The figures for the Canterbury-Kaikoura district are s Merino rams 1,129,982, merino ewes 1,665,197; rams of other breeds 898,169, ewes of other breeds 1,791,683; breeding ewes, merinos, 1,268,477; breeding ewes, other breeds, 1,164,302. The number of eheepqwners in the Colony on April 80,1893, was Auckland, 2178, being an increase of 236 over the previous year; Napier, 1226, being an increase of 89; Wellington and West Coast, 8321, being an increase of 287; Marlborough and Nelson, 1332; being an increase of 52; Canterbury and Kaikoura, 3359, being an increase of 298; Otago, 3383, being an increase of 287; total, 14,779, being an increase of 1249.