SHEEP-BREEDING.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1802, 24 January 1884, Page 3

SHEEP-BREEDING.

10 THi: I.DIIOK. Sik,— Under Hie .ibm-o heading theie has appealed in ■\our columns a short correspondence between Mi Douglas and " Shaftesbmy,"' the lattei taking the fonnei to task foi raying that some ewehoggett-> — a direct uo--s between Lmcolns and Houthdowns — " would wink up to a Shropshne flock if Shiopshiie ianis weie put t<> them." I believe Mr Douglas to be pei fectly light, and 1 will endeavour to piove this asseition later on. " Shaftesbury, 1 m the latest letter I liave seen of his, most ungiaciou.sly c.ill-: Mr Spooner (> a hor«o doctor," and would lead yovu ieadei& to suppose that neither he nor they knew him as an authonty on sheep, in the first place Mr Spooner was a duly appointed M. R.C.V.S., and would ha\ c to pas*, an examination on tiie tieatnient of all kinds of live stock. If that is not sufficient let me tell " Shaftes bury" that his "hoi so doctor ' has published a special woik on sheep, and I Iwve the book befoie me as T wute ; it is called "The Sheep, ltsHistoiy, Stnictme, and Disease^, &c," The published pncewas3s Od, and it is levised up to 1878. I may add it is univei sally acknowledged as a standaid authoiity, not only by English, but by veiy Litest American wiiters. "Shaftesbuiy,'' su^* : "I cannot find wheieSpnoner or any other authoiity mentions a Lincoln cross in connection with Hluopshue Downs." Perhaps not, but he can find a cioss quite as violent mentioned by Spooner in page 152 ; heie it is \erbatnn : "It is found that the Leicestei agiee better with the black-faced and other heath breeds than does the South Down,"' Ho it is e\ ulent other ciosses had been tried, and as the Lmcolns were one of the most universal breed of sheep, presumably they were tried also. Now a fewwords as to " breeding up," and I will quote .same authority, .same page : "If this plan (of crossing) is pin sued for se\eial generations the great gi andson will possess seveneighths of the now blood, and only oneeighth of the old, and in the next generation one-sixteenth of the latter only will be letained. It (crossing) has a\so been successfully employed with other flocks, ond may be consideied the cheapest as well as the safest system by which a new impioved breed can be made to supplant an old and impei feet one." And now I will go to another authority, and one who quotes Spooner as an authority (pace "Shaftesbury "). I ha\ c before me a book called ; " Stock-breeding, Miles." He was a Professor of Agiiculture in the Michigan State Agiicultmal College, and this book was j published in New York in 1879. Et is by far the most advanced book of its kind I have ever read, and I commend it to your subsciibei.s. To give in extenso the example of crossbreeding, which I wish to bi ing befoie your leadeis, that this author cites, would take up too much space ; bi iefly as possible it stands thus : An eminent Fienchman wished to improve his floek — they were an old-established but indifferent breed of merinos — he sent for English ranis ; the first cross was a marvellous success ; the second cross was equally good as long as the lambs remained lambs and were kept with the ewes, but directly they were weaned they pined away, and if they did not die remained miserably stunted animals, shoving more of the breed of the ewe than of the ram. Again and again he tried, but always with the same result ; baffled, but not conqwred, Vie at laM» hit on the reason of his non-success, which was this : In the first place his old flock having been bied "in and in" for generations, was more pure in blood (such as it was) than" the English rams which had been improved by various recent crosses ; consequently, after the first cross, the ewe had more " prei potency " than the ram, and the lambs that lived after weaning " threw back " to her, whilst the deaths were caused from the fact that the weaker lambs of the second cross could not stand the French climate ; convinced of this fact he next proceeded to select some ewes from a flock already crossbred (both Rides French) he crossed their progeny ■with another cross and their progeny with yet another cross ; the result was that his ewes had four direct crosses in them, and when the English rams were put to them, being purer bred, the lambs followed the sire, lived and thrived, and their offspring threw lambs true to their grandsire — the English ram, and have continued to do so. *' Shaftesbury " may, as he says, " dismiss (with contempt) all the rubbish about culling, working the crosses, selection and breeding up, &c," but if we are to judge him by his letters, we can tell him that many a wiser man than he has spent a life service in doing -the very things that he decries, and it is to such, men, and such men alone, that we owe at the present time our proud .pre-eminence as stockbreeder's ; our English horse, English cattle, English sheep, English pigs j&c. are what they are, . thanks to those, jnaster-tnindß, who by'patient culling, crqsßing, a.n,d, breeding up, have raised tae 'standard of all-swuyc to its present height of perfection. Nexf, I must jjive a wore} of warning, of which J.

t>eg all readei's to take heed : TKvery authority I am acquainted with strongly insists upon it that none but the very few should attempt to go beyond a first or secovid • "ci'oiss s, with , sheep f T- oxcept Mjles — and I can't/, find, be says anything aga,inst it ; and even the other authors, when warning us against the practice, have had in their mind the fact of (say) a Leicester-Southdown cross followed by {mother Southdown cross ; but we have been that theFicnchmau succeeded in his way of working, and why should not others follow in his footsteps. My object in writing this letter was not to befriend Mr Douglas, <n to say anything disagieeable to '" Shaftesbury ; " it is written solely for one purpose, viz : to call my fellow-settlers' attention to the kinds of sheep they have at present, and to the kinds of sheep they — in my opinion — ought to have ; but it was necessary before doing this to clear away the dust caused by the above correspondence. My belief is. that for the Australian colonies and the hill mns of our own islaucis, a sheep that is grown principally for its wool is the proper sheep to have, and that they undoubtedly have got at the pre sent time, the merino ; but for Waikato settlors, whose holdings are comparatively small, and whoso rich English grass paddocks aie .so different to the tussock of native grasses, this sheep wont do ; the coming sheep must be associated with the supply for the English market ; it must carry a good fleece, give a large percentage of Jambs, and at the last must make most excellent mutton ; to do this we must go to the Downs— South Downs, Hampshire Downs, Shropshire Downs, arc all good, the last I like best, for the reason that I have bred them and know them best; on a cold day farm in Worcestershire, not onp acre of which could I break up to give them turnips, I, in 187S, got 151 per cent, of lambs, the wet ewes gave within a fraction of 81bs. of wool, for which I got Is 2d per lb., and a six months old lamb weighed ilOlb. live weight. I need haidly point out that theie are few amongst us who can affoid, at the piesent time, to buy pure-bred Downs of any .sort, but I have been considerably chccied to read in the papers that a .shipment of impoited pure-bi edb has lately been landed in Auckland, and it is to be piesumed that the male progeny of these sheep (and any others we may have in the island), will be at the serwoe of anyone übo will open his puise sti ings ; on the female side let us look at an oidmaiy flock of breeding ewes, almost all have at least a mixture of Leicester and Linoln — heie are two ciosses at once. Some also show hacoo of the Meuuo — heie is a thncl cioas ; now looking | afc the Ficnchiu.ui's success, I would ask j | tho-e who know moie abwiit breeding than I do, if wo h.uc not m a such a flock the material for bleeding up a Black-faced | sheop. 1 cei Ui nly think we have, and sui> way lam positively ceitain of a good lamb in the hist cioss, for the simple reason that 1 have seen it tried ; last year a settler put to such a flock of ewes as I ha\e doscu'ied, thiee Shiopshne lanis, one lam being a decidedly better sheep than the rest, and his Limbs can be picked out almost to a certainty ; they paitake laigely of the Down chaiacter in fleece, foim and coloui ; indued, some of the lambs aie so daik in face and feet that if fiozen and sent home with their feet left on I believe they would fetch from Id to 2d more than oidmaiy sheep, and I am sure they would be sold letail as Down sheep, fetch Down prices, which, as nil of iis doubtless know, is (with the exception of the small Welsh mountain sheep) the most valued and the highest paced mutton in the Homo mai kefcs. The lambs of the other ranis aie not .so good, some being as white-faced as the ewes, and 1 account for this veiy easily. Either by accident or design these mms have a cross that Las not been successful, or has not been thoroughly woiked out, consequently they have to some extent lost their "piepotency." If, Mi Editor, this lettei of mine induces my f ellow-settlei ,s to look into this matter themselves— whether they come to the same conclusion as I have aheady ai lived at oi not — my purpose will be accomplished, and to disarm suspicion pcimit me to add that I have no pecuniaiy inteiest, diiect or indnecfc, in any flock of Black-faced sheep in the colonies or at Home. If in my letter I ha\e had to be uithei haul on " Shaftesbury." I would ask him to pai don me. His platfoim appeals to be "stand-still," mine is "advance," consequently we must be antagonistic, and I have had to shoot a shaft at "Shaffcesbm y" that has, I hope, consideiably sniveled the timber of his wooden structure. --lam, &c, WAKW ICK.

A Lakwe Diamond. — Advices received from Kunbui ley state that the large diamond, weighing o^oz., found recently at Jageisfonteir., lias been immeised in acid and has biiglitened up a great deal. The diamond is the size of a duck's egg, only rather flatter. In its rough state the stone )& consideierl to be worth about £2,000, but it is believed that ib will cut up into very valuable gems. Tiik Two A>TAGOMhT.s. — The Prince of while " under tutors and governors," would sometimes choose his onn subject foi the drawing-lesson. On one occasion his Royal Highness elected to sketch " a meeting between Wellirgton and Napoleon," and the picture piogiesssed con amoie. There came a tap at the door, and the duke himself enteied. " An," said his Giace, smiling, "I see whom you are drawing ! That's me" — pointing to the figure repiesenting himself iv the sketch. l( I recognise it by the nose. And now I am going to tell you something little known, scarcely credible, and yet a positive fact. In all I the battles fought between Napoleon and myself, we never once met face to face." The NtcL^-iirv ion Holidays. — That I a holiday is a necessity, and not merely a luxury, is a fact which it especially behoves membei&of our hard working profession to remember in the legulation of their own lives as well as in then dealings with their patients. For the brainwoiker, periodical 1 emission of aceustoined toil has always been a necessary condition of continued vigour ; for hint, the heightened tension of modern life has especially accentuated the need for occasional periods devoted to the recieation and reaccummulation of energy. The cogent physiological principles and practical purposes of systematic holidays are generally admitted. All woikers, if they are to last, must have holidays. For some pei sons and some occupations, frequent shoit holidays are best ; with other natures, and in other circumstances, only compatatively long peiiods of release from routine are of service. Few real workers, if any, can safely continue to deny themselves at least a yearly holiday. Mere rest, that is mere cessation from woik, while it is better than unbroken toil, does not increase the faiily vigorous so thoioughly as does a complete change of activity from accustomed channels. For the strong worker, either with brain op muscle, diversion of activity recreates better than rest alone, The whole body feeds as it works, and grows as it feeds. Rest may check expenditure of force, but it is chiefly by expending energy that the stoics ot energy can be leplenished. We mostly need holidays because our ordinary daily life tends to sink into a narrow groove of routine exertion, working and wearying some part of our organism disproportionately, so that its powers of work and its faculty of recuperation are alike worn down. In a well arranged holidays, we do notecase fiom activity, w« only change its channels ; with such change we give a new and saving stimulus to assimilation, and the transmutation of its products into force. As a rule, the hardest workers live longest, but ouly those live long who sufficiently -break their wonted toil by the recreating variety of" well timed and well spent holidays.— British Medical Journal. The Misses Young resume school on Wednesday, January 30th. Ihe annual meeting of the members of the Hukanut Public Library will be held at Woodlands on Saturday, 26th inst. The Public Works Department invite tenders for the erection of about 30 station buildings on the Hamilton-Cambridpe line. The Public Works Office invite tenders for drainage at Huntl) . ' You will do well to furnish your house from. Garlick' v and Cranwell's. T,hey have now the most complete Furnishing Warebous'e in Auckland, furniture to suit all classes, good strc.-.g, and cheap. The}' have Tapestry Carpets .torn 2s 3d per yard, Brussels from 3s lid per yard, Linoleum from 3s 9d to ss, Oil Cloths from Is 6d to 4s 6d per yard, good 12 feet .wide Oil Cloths at 3s 6d per yard. Immense assortment of -Iron Bedstftds from Gotsrto 5 -feet wide baWtesier Bfedstealds, Dtfuble iron -Be'djteadp ftoin,2ssViBo Bedsteads.ih itock to select from.'- Beddings of all kinds and sizes kept in readiness. Dining, Sitting, Drawing-room ifur-' niturcr and and a large assortment of Manchester arid f£urpijhinfr} Goods! including la/ lot oftCrmuAAifc! 'BcrofcsCataH>j»tieV»en« wee to in- f t«ndi»g purchasers, Garlick and Cranwell, CityJ&ll Orcado, Quceu-itrWt A«eU*nd;r -7,