Sheep and Wool.

Otago Witness, Issue 1343, 25 August 1877, Page 18

Sheep and Wool.

SHEEP BREEDING IN QUEENSLAND. ,

Considering the vast extent of admirable grazing country in Queensland, and the far-and-away start that the sheepgrazing industry has had of all other industries here, it is altogether marvellous that that indnaty should have made such insignificant progress. Ten years ago thera were qnite as many sheep in Queensland as at the present time ; and although there has been an increase in the value of wooland other pastoral products exported, this increase is owing not so much to improvement in quality, nor to increase of quantity, so much as to the better market which as a rule may now be obtained for such... commodities. Horned cattle have increased at a fair rate during the period mentioned, and if anything like the attention that has been paid to the improve-ment-of breeds of cattle had been similarly bestowed on sheep, there is every reason to believe that instead of being outstripped by other industries, 'the' business of breeding sheep and growing' 'wool would occupy the same advanced position to-day in respect to" all other industries as it' did! in the early days of the cplony. There 'have, "of conrqe, .been numerous well-directed enx>rts made on many Queensland stations foe' the establishment of breeds adapted to the varied .pasturage and climate of the colony ; but taking the cheep-breeders as a, whole, we, -may. safely affirm, of them that Jftey have made little or no pretensions to systematic; and scien- • tific breeding. '. m,:* i * • . Sheep can exist in almost any country; ; They are fonnd in varied form in the torrid,' the temperate, and the frigid' zone -—approaching the perpetual snows and icy barriers of- the Arctic regions, and in the Cordilleras of South America, thriving ; directly under the Equator. But though they' can be reared -within' such an im- j mense range of latitude, it I*3 evident that i it is only, in a temperate climate, under favourable circumstances with , regard to pasturage, and with careful attention to their breeding, that their growth can be a financial success, where che operations are carried onata great distance from a market for their chief product— -wool. .Probably no country in the world, of the same extent, contains such a large area of land' suitably, situated as to dictate, • arid providing such abundant and "nutritious herbage f 6 j sheep as this colony ; and it is impossible to attribute the stationary state of this, division of .the grazing, business to any other cause than Blovenly and empirical breeding. • The first point to be considered by the sheep-breeder is the suitability of his floct to the climate and' pastures of his run. It is all very well to maintain that this or that breed is the most profitable ; but when we come to think of the great difference in these respects between Borne of the runs even oh the Darling Downs, it is easy to perceive that, in such an extensive tract as Queensland, no choice of breed is capable of. anything like general application. And yet this is a point to which we see the least attention paid as a general rule. -Indeed, 1 many flocks have been seriously and ■ permanently deteriorated by the injudicious, though well-inten-tioned^ introduction of rams whose progeny' have proved less' adapted to their environment, than their parents on the female side.— The Week.