INTERESTING FEATURES OF AUSTRALASIAN AGRICULTURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 932, 10 January 1890, Page 19

INTERESTING FEATURES OF AUSTRALASIAN AGRICULTURE.

Professor Robert Wallace, of Edinburgh, who last year made a thorough tour of the Australasian colonies, and spent several weeks in New Zealand, delivered, before the Agricultural Class of the Edinburgh University, on October 23, 1889, a lecture on some of the interesting features of Australasian agriculture. A copy of the lecture has been forwarded to us by the publishers, Messrs Oliver and Boyd, of Edinburgh. Professor Wallace, in his introduction, says that the main object of his mission to the Antipodes was to extend his knowledge of the agriculture of the colonial dependencies, and to stimulate an interest between those holding influential positions in the colonies and the Department of Agriculture in the Edinburgh University. The most prominent fact he noticed in his travels was the most extraordinary ignorance prevailing in Great Britain about the colonies regarding the wonderful growth and. progress which they have achieved within comparatively recent years, their enormous wealth and resources, and the influence they will exercise upon certain British industries when sufficient time is allowed for their further development. Referring to the frozen mutton trade of New Zealand, Professor Wallace says - “ The sheep which are in favour for this trade are crossbred wethers, mainly from the Lincoln, Border, Leicester and Romney Marsh breeds. The pure merino has remained at a discount, as it was said to be thin-fleshed'and too dark in colour to suit the British taste. It has consequently been argued that a limit to the frozen meat trade was clearly within sight, because the great bulk of the sheep of Australia belonged to the merino breed, and owing to the nature of their surroundings must continue to be merinos. The inducements to replace them with heavier fleshed breeds has been great —not only on account of the frozen meat trade, bat also because the wool of crossbreds and lungwools has lately been bringing com* paratively much better prices than formerly. Merinos as mutton producers are, however, so much better suited to the pro' vailing conditions in most districts yet to be stocked with sheep, that, in spite of the apparent inducements to give a preference to longwools, the gieat increase of the future, iu Australia at all events, will be in the merino breed. But on this fact the British farmer, who is fearful of additional foreign competition in the mutton market, need not build false hopes. In spite of the prejudice against the appearance of it in the London market, that fact remains the merino mutton in good condition—the sheep having been killed right from their pastures without being driven or transported long distances —is equal in flavour and texture to our best Highland, Welsh, or Southdown mutton, and distinctly superior to the more or less gross and coarse longwool mutton that is now being imported. It has been strongly asserted, on what is presumably reliable authority, that the best Australian mutton found its way into consumption in England as “home grown ” at the higher rate which the latter is enabled to command. The appearance of merino mutton would at once preclude it from this illicit trade, and consequently there would not be the same demand for it ex-ship as for the other. The size is also rather below what is now wanted for the London market. The extension of the frozen meat trade in Scotland, however,,is developing a demand for merino mutton such as is to be expected of it in consideration of its quality. Size and appearance do not go so far where consumers are accustomed to the moderate dimensions of Scotch sheep. To be suitable for the British market, he must be killed practically on the spot in the full flow of life and prime condition.”