STOCK NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6313, 19 October 1898, Page 4

STOCK NOTES.

[By Tussock in " Canterbury Times."l Nothing could show more clearly the scarcity of freezers .than the fact that Mr W. B. Clarkson has gone on a month's tour of the North Island, and Mr John Clarkson on a prolonged wedding trip. There was only one export buyer at Addington last week.

At the Temuka sale last week 2400 hoggets from Otago were entered, and sold privately after being passed at 10s Id at auction (? how much trotting). No doubt these and similar lines were referred to by the southern papers as "Prime Canterbury ''when they were railed up. By the. way, there is a better demand for hoggets in Ashbuiton and South Canterbury than in the north: good prices were realised at Ashburton last week.

' The gale of Sept. 23 caused some ( heavy losses of sheep in its track. ' Messrs John Deans (Homebush), Duncan Cameron (Springfield), J. C. Wason (Corwar) and Denis M'Kendry (Lauriston) are reported to be amongst the heaviest losers. It was hoped at first that flocks had escaped worse injury than damage to thfe wool, but such was unfortunately not the case.

The weakness in the price of frozen mutton in the middle of August, was in cable messages received at the time, attributed to "weak holders." The mail reports received last week confirm this view. Perhapß Mr Weddel's visit to the colonies may lead to some effectual steps being taken to rescue the trade from its present disorganisation, and prevent those frequent sacrifices of the producers' interests. .

The most satisfactory point in the frozen meat trade reports by last mail is the unanimous remark upon the increasing favour in which Canterbury lamb is being held. ludead. all frozen lamb is meeting a good demand. The hot weather at Home had, no doubt, something to do with this, as mutton and beef were dull of sale, and prices lower. '

Enormous quantities of meat were condemned in London during the hot weather in August. The meat destroyed included best Scotch beef and mutton, country and town-killed Home-bred, Birkenhead and Deptford-killed foreign and Canadian, American chilled beef, Dutch mutton and pork. The only produce that seems to have come out scathless and withstood the heat successfully ,was frozen meat, the exposure before consumption that would be destructive, to all other meats only sufficing to bring frozen into proper condition. So says the C.C, and D. Co.

I notice that the Gore Farmers' Club has decided against the-Agricultural Conference resolutions-r^those proposed by Mr M. C. Orbell4-for the reform of the frozen meat trade. At the meeting of the club (and also in. the columns of the "Witness") the Christchurch Meat Company is named as being opposed to regulation ; as should be well known, it was the Canterbury Frcnen Meat Export Company (Belfast) "which stood out.

Mi' T. M'JTenzle, London representative of the New Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Associations, in his last circular, declares that the present system of insurance assessment on frozen meat must be abandoned. "It. is," he gays, "nothing short of a public scandal. The thirty days' clause, instead of improving matters, enormously aggravates the evil. "Xetif we revert to the old sixty days', clause and assess on the market instead of in stores we only modify the evil without any likelihood of eradicating it. It has been proved beyond doubt that money is paid for ' damage ' which does not exist. The , risk insurance companies take is not the o *dinary damage occurring during transit, b u t the risk of sums demanded by buyer s of parcels at this end."

A shipment of horses, mostly remounts, was sent from New Zealand to Calcutta last week by the Union Steamship Company's Wanaka. About twenty-five were shipped at Port Chalmers, sixty-one at Lyttelton, and a further number at Wellington, and the equine cargo was to be made up at Sydney.