The NORTHLAND FARMER

Northern Advocate, 17 December 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

The NORTHLAND FARMER

Edited by C. E

A page prepared for the purpose of helping the Northland farmer to make the utmost use of the remarkable advantages which Nature has bestowed on Northland, and thereby to develop the most fertile territory in New Zealand.

According to a recent estimate, the world’s sheep population would be 700,000,00 j head, only part of which (50-66 per cent.), produces wool, the rest either not producing wool at all or only in insignificant quantities and of very low quality. It is even more difficult to obtain data on the distribution of other branches of production of the sheep industry. Obviovisly all sheep produce mutton and sheep skins and all ewes produce milk, but in very few cases does the milk

(Continued from last Saturday)

oped sheep -cheese industry. In some countries of Central and Western Eojrope the milk (production has a certain importance for the domestic milk supply of the poorer people and where sheep raising competes with goats. The two focal points, however, of the sheep industry are wool production and mutton production. From the point of view of agricultural economy and breeding wool production and mutton production present differThe World’s Sheep It is rather difficult to indicate with any accuracy the size of the world sheep population; in many cases countries which possess a considerable

production play an important part, . being usually of very secondary importance because of the highly develin the Balkans, and in the Mediterranean countries that milk production has partly attained an economic importance because fo the highly devel-

The British Farmers' Plight

stock of sheep, * the enumeration of flecks is undertaken too incompletely and irregularly for the data obtained to be other than approximative, states an Irish exchange.

ences which sometimes may become very marked. Adaptation to poor, and especially irregular feeding conditions is the basic principle for sheep breeding for wool production; for as long as possible slow maturing animals ai'e used and the culled animals are slaughtered lean or only slightly fattened. There must be economies in raising and fattening foodstuffs so as to be able to feed as many wool pro-

ducers as possible. The suckling period must coincide with the period of best feeding conditions. Conversely, sheep

raising for mutton, which must dispose of more abundant supplies of feeding stuffs, directs all efforts to the transformation of as much feeding stuff as possible into mutton. It uses animals maturing early, accelerates the turnover by early service and by reducing the age of fat stock to the period of rapid growth, it fattens all culled animals, and times the lambing period so as to ensure abundant nutrition of fhc young stock.

Production of Lambs New Zealand is rapidly increasing the importance of her fat lamb industry, but a similar trend is apparent in other countries. From a general point of view it may be stated that in nearly all countries interested in mutfor production as such, great progress has been made in the grading up of flecks thanks to the considerable efforts and sacrifices of the last decades. The

constitution of flocks has not only changed in respect of breeds, a simultaneous modification of the numerical relation between the different classes of age and sex has also become apparent. This modification may be attributed chiefly to the increasing demand for lamb. The proportion of breeding ewes has also increased of late; owing to the methods of production used, this has brought about an increase in the number of pure bred rams. These changes allow for a greater elasticity

of production, the breeders being able to increase or reduce their flocks according to market conditions much easier than before. The demand for lamb has increased substantially in both the United Kingdom and the United States, in the latter country the proportion of lambs to the total number of sheep being augmented by 47 per cent, between 1925 and 1931. Tire statistics for the United Kingdom distinguish between mutton and lamb imports only since 1920, but we can as-

sume that the trend in the consumer’s taste toward lamb must already have been apparent before. In 19-24 the proportion of imported mutton to lamb was 1-1, but 1-2.91 in 1935. It might be of interest to point out that in countries where the milk production has been of importance, there has always been a relatively high percentage of lambs slaughtered. In Italy 47.25 per cent, of the mutton 'production comes from lambs in their first month. (Concluded).