FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 294, 9 November 1934, Page 5

FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

BEST LAMBS UNCHANGED.

Best lambs, no change ; ordinary, /d lower; wethers and ewes, no change; beef, £d higher. The foregoing cable advice was received by M. A. Eliott, Ltd., today from Gordon, Woodroffe and Co., Ltd., London. The following are Smithfield prices for the week ending November 8, 1934 (these are on the “delivered” basis, that is, including storage charges, cartage, etc.) : Best North Island prime lambs, under 36,7 d, 36-42 North Island lambs, under 42 6|d; second quality, under 42 6d; best North Island wethers and/or maiden ewes, 4856, 56-64 4sd, 64-72, over 72 4Jd; ordinary North Island wethers and/or maiden ewes, 48-56, 56-64 4ld, 64-72, over 72 4fd; North Island ewes, under 64 3|d, 64-72, over 72 2Jd; New Zealand prime ox beef (equal fores and hinds), 160-220 2Jd.

SYDNEY WOOL SALES. MARKET FIRM AT CLOSE. SYDNEY, Nov. 8. At the wool sales to-day 11,427 bales were offered, 9411 being sold at auction ; also 1469 privately. The market closed firm, with prices unchanged. Continental and Yorkshire buyers competed freely, with good support from Japan. Greasy Merino sold to 18Id for five bales from Yass.

SYDNEY PRODUCE MARKETS. SYDNEY, Nov. 8. Wheat at country sidings is 2s a bushel for bagged, and Is 11 d in bulk, equal to 2s 7d to 2s 7Jd extrucks, Sydney. The first consignment of new season’s wheat to-day made 3s 4d a bushel.

Flbur, £7 15s a ton. Bran, £5 a ton. Pollard, £5 5s a ton. Potatoes, local new to £l2 a ton; Tasmanian, £l4; Victorian, £9. Onions, brown, £8 10s to £9 a ton. Maize, yellow and white, 3s 3d a bushel.

LIVESTOCK IMPROVEMENT

LIMITS OF PROGENY TEST,

Difficulties attending the improvement of livestock by selection were described to the Zoology Section by Mr A. D. Buchanan Smith, of the Edinburgh Institute of Animal Genetics.

There is no doubt, Mr Buchanan Smith said, that selection can greatly increase the production of stock, but as the productivity of improved stock rises, so does the rate of improvement decrease. He thought that future information of scientific value regarding the inheritance of milk yield and quality would only be obtained by the control of environment and nutrition to the greatest possible extent, so that comparisons may be straightforward. The problem is not the simple one of selection for one particular object. In striving to obtain a definite race of high producers, we desire to obtain a multitude of characters, each of which is dependent upon a multitude of genes. Hence the need for more fundamental knowledge. 11l the meantime, Mr Buchanan Smith urged a continuance of existing selection methods (with the re-enforce-ment of the recent remarkable rediscovery of the progeny test). On the whole it would give good results. “When, as was bound to happen, there was a popular reaction to the progeny test —not because it has failed to give results —but because those results have not been as great as the advocates of the test are now promising—then will be the time when the science of genetics will be able to make a further and definite contribution to the subject, provided that the foundations for_ such work have been well and truly laid.”