TYPE IN ROMNEY MARSH SHEEP.

Otago Witness, Issue 3014, 20 December 1911, Page 14

TYPE IN ROMNEY MARSH SHEEP.

After the judging of the Romney Marsh sheep was concluded at the Southland Show a very enthusiastic breeder, who had hardly recovered from the motion of the ship, tackled the judge in reference to his decisions in this section of the show. Nothing loth to uphold his verdict, the judge joined issue, and the pair went at it hammer and tongs, and soon attracted an amused and admiring crowd. From pen to pen they passed and back again, till every sheep had been torn or dissected to pieces and feeling began to run high. In the end, it must be admitted, neither party was convinced. Every characteristic in turn of the breed was reviewed, and the incident served to show what an amount of instruction could be imparted in a short time if only the judges could be induced, as in this case, to demonstrate and explain the faith that was in them. The judge's task at the Southland Show was no sinecure. There were four breeders exhibiting, most of them animals from noted flocks, and there were three quite distinct types of wool, ranging from the finest of fine wool on large-framed heavy sheep, as in the case of the Clifton sheep, to that which was not quite so fine in the Castlerock sheep, and very much stronger in Messrs Murray and W. C. Lqdbrook and 'Son's case. There was therefore room for wide diversity of opinion so far as wool was con-

cerneci. Mr Short has bred up a flock of wnat he calls "Record" Romney Marsh sheep, and which is referred to all over the Dominion by that name. He has spent thousands ot pounds in importing and buying up the best sheep he could lay his hands on, and, regardless of expense, he has established a flock, we understand, largely composed of the stronger-woolled type of Romney. His flock has been largely availed of by North and South Island breeders, and" has coloured the whole of the Romney flocks in the north and many of them* in the south. When judges are, brought from the North Island, naturally they favour the sheep most hire their own in character, and it is alleged by some Romney breeders that this is not by any means the British ideal of, what a Romney should be, and that in the controversy of the show ground the judge gave reasons which were naturally biassed by his own work, and reckoned that he had nothing to learn from the old school of breeders, who have borne the brunt of the day in New Zealand and successfully established magnificent flocks of sheep. Mr Short is said to have even gone the length of condemning the British breeder and his sheep, and thinks that the colonial article was the higher class production of the two. However that may be, Mr Short found himself faced with the position that he had three types of wool in front of him, and he had'no option but to stick to the one he thought best. But a minor point also cropped up—viz., the soundness of the wool on the backs of some of the sheep,— and exception was taken to this point receiving pointed attention. It was stated that when Australian sheep come, over here they cannot stand the climate and tneir wool gees off colour, and also when housed and" clothed few of them_ exhibit any weakness in the back. On this point, however, Mr Short stood en solid ground; such weakness should be bred out of the stud sheep of any breed. The whole point seems to resolve itself into this: Is the Romney to be bred with a valuable fleece of fine wool and a bone heavy enough to. carry a large frame—a sheep capable of producing acceptable freezers /when two-tooth with the first cross, or are these characteristics to be sacrificed largely for wool alone? We would like an answer from some of our noted breeders.