LAMBING ESTIMATES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 6 December 1938, Page 9

LAMBING ESTIMATES

DECREASE ON LAST YEAR 50-1,352 DOWN i United Frew Asocial ion 1 WELLINGTON, This Day. Estimates of lambing for the current season were announced last evening by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr W. Lee Martin. These show a total of 16,645,165 lambs for the Dominion as compared with an estimate of 17,149,517 lambs for last year, a decrease of 504,352. Poor returns in the North Island were solely responsible for this drop in the figures. The estimated number of lambs for the various sheep districts in that island is 8,600,625, as compared with 9,145,849 last year, a decrease. of 545,224 lambs. Estimates for the {South Island show an increase of 40,872 lambs more than the figure for 1937. In releasing the figures, the Minister said that the annual lambing estimates had in the past provided a reasonably accurate forecast of the seasonal lambing, but in view of the incidence of the socalled facial eczema this would not be so this year. The estimated number of lambs was based on the number of breeding ewes in each county as at 30th April, and, though in the estimated percentage of lambs due allowance had been made for the effects of facial eczema, it had not been possible to make any adjustments for losses of breeding ewes subsequent to 30th April last, because of the varying duration and severity of the epidemic in different districts. The figures fo” the Auckland Province, and to a lesser extent Wellington district, in Taranaki and Manawatu, were, therefore, likely to prove inaccurate and unduly optimistic.