THE DOMINION’S SHEEP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20182, 26 June 1928, Page 6

THE DOMINION’S SHEEP

yyOOL being by far the most important individual item in New Zealand’s export trade, and the value of all produce from its flocks of sheep greatly exceeds those from its herds of cattle, the annual census of sheep is an instructive indication of the country’s material prosperity.

It is therefore gratifying to find that the interim return of sheep discloses an increase for the sixth year in succession, bringing the total to the highest ever recorded. As a matter of fact the figure of 27,000,000 will probably be substantially increased in the final returns, which are generally from a quarter to half a million above the provisional count. Already, the increase for the year is substantially greater than was disclosed in 1917-18, when there was an accretion of 1,268,000, and a comparatively small addition in the final return will bring the year’s increase above that for 1907-08, which was 1,465,000, the highest in the last 30 years at least. The recovery to a level above the record of ten years ago has not been uniform throughout the Dominion. There are 329,000 fewer sheep in the North Island than in 1918, aud 728,000 more in the South Island. Actually, the greatest expansion has been in the Auckland and Otago sheep districts. During the decade Auckland flocks have increased by 361,000, equivalent to 17J per cent., while those in Otago have increased by 728,500, or 14J per cent. Canterbury-Kaikoura shows a relatively small increase of 86,000, but there are fewer sheep in the other three districts.

The year was distinguished by a large export of mutton and a record export of lamb, yet at its close the sheep population remained at a record figure. When it is realised that the four principal items—wool, lamb, mutton and skins—represented nearly £27,000,000 in the exports of the last financial year, £5,500,000 more than in the previous year, the significance of the expansion in flocks, combined with the prospect of stable prices for the produce from them, becomes apparent.