THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

former years, notwithstanding the enormous falling
off in the number of sheep.

How is this to be accounted for? 1st. I think the
Stock Returns were most inaccurate until a recent
period, and up to 1869-70 they were given by many
sheepowners in an exaggerated form. 2nd. Taking
an average of years since 1858, there would appear
to be an increase of from 15,000 to 20,000 head of
cattle. This increase of cattle arising from sheep-
runs having been turned into cattle-runs in conse-
quence of fluke, a steadier demand for beef and
mutton having sprung up, and the total abandon-
ment of large tracts of country as sheep-runs on
account of fluke, reasonably accounts for a large
diminution in the number of sheep since 1868-69,
probably to the extent of 150,000. 3rd. The ravages
of the rabbits in many parts of the Colony, I think,
without any exaggeration, would account for
50,000 more. As an example I may mention the
fact of a gentleman in the Campbell Town District
having informed me that where formerly he had from
fifty to sixty bales of wool, his sheep had been so
reduced in number from want of food that last year
he had only ten bales.

Therefore, if we take the diminished number of
sheep from the abandonment of runs on account of
fluke, the substitution of cattle for sheep on those
and other runs, and the diminished number from the
effect of the rabbit plague, we can account for the
number of sheep being about 200,000 less than some
few years ago. Still we have the fact of the un-
diminished quantity of wool shipped from the Colony
unaccounted for; and this, I think, may be attributed
to two causes: 1st. A tendency to an improved
system of sheep-farming by reducing the numbers of
sheep on overstocked runs with a view to produce
mutton for a steadier and more certain market,
causing the sheep to be in better condition on those
runs, and consequently more productive in wool;
and 2nd. The greatly improved condition of the
sheep produced by the operation of the Scab Act.

For although the Act did not become law until
March, 1870, it was passed in the Session of 1869,
and its provisions, and what would be required by it,
were very freely and fully discussed in Parliament
and through the Press from the beginning of 1869
up to the time when the Bill finally passed. The
subject had taken root in the minds of sheep-
owners generally, and with the Scab Act looming in
the distance, a very large number erected dips and
prepared themselves to meet the requirements of the
law when it should come into operation. In this
manner I think the Act effected a great amount of
good twelve months before it became law.

There has been for some years past a marked dimi-
nution in the number of fat sheep and bullocks
imported into this Colony, arising principally from
boiling-down and meat-preserving in the continental
Colonies having so extensively absorbed their surplus
meat as to create a less variable and more remunera-
tive market for butcher's meat of all kinds. The
prospect of a steadier market with remunerative
prices, combined with, in many instances, a judicious
reduction of the numbers of sheep on overstocked
runs, has produced a sufficient supply of meat at
moderate prices until a very recent period, when
importations of cattle from Twofold Bay and sheep
from Victoria had to be resumed. A reference to
the imports of live stock into the Colony from 1858
to 1870 inclusive, I think, may lead to the conclusion
that ere long we shall be entirely independent of
foreign supply for either fat bullocks or sheep.

In 1858 there arrived at the port of Hobart Town
5,517 bullocks and 25,869 sheep; Launceston, 1,108
bullocks and 11,786 sheep; or 6,625 bullocks and
37,655 sheep, at an estimated value of £114,358.

In 1870 the same Returns give, - Hobart Town,
1,640 bullocks and 14,903 sheep; Launceston, 4,357
sheep; at an estimated value of £27,945.

It may not be uninteresting or out of place here,
to give a statement, taken from the annual Customs
Returns, of the value of bullocks and sheep imported
into Tasmania from the year 1857 to 1870 inclusive:

I have not got the materials by me to go further
back than 1857, but I believe if 1856 and 1855 were
included, it would show that during the last sixteen
years Tasmania has paid in hard cash more than
£1,000,000 sterling for an article which the country
can produce well for itself under an improved system
of farming.

Various causes in former years tended to produce
a state of things which would naturally lead super-
ficial observers to the conclusion that such enormous
importations of fat bullocks and sheep, in proportion
to population, was conclusive evidence that the
country was naturally so ill adapted for the produc-
tion of meat that it could not produce enough to
supply its scanty population. This impression was
produced not only on the minds of strangers, but was
believed to be true by a large section of the Tasmanian
people. The conclusion was very natural, although
it was a most erroneous one. The causes which, in
the first place, induced the importation of bullocks
and sheep into Tasmania, and afterwards produced a
chronic deficiency of meat in the country, which ren-
dered a large annual importation an absolute and
confirmed necessity, are traceable to sources altogether
independent of the natural capacity of the country
to produce a sufficiency of fat beef and mutton at
reasonable prices for the use of its inhabitants.

Before the boiling-down system was introduced
into Australia, meat was almost valueless. A leg of
mutton from a sheep weighing 70 lbs. or more could
be had for sixpence in Sydney and Melbourne. The
contractors for supplying the convict establishments
and the military in Tasmania first began the syste-
matic importation of beef and mutton from Victoria,
which went on increasing until in a few years the
Hobart Town market was almost exclusively supplied
from that source. The Tasmanian settler, when he
found meat down to a price so low that it paid him
better to keep his sheep for the wool alone, gave up
the idea of producing fat sheep, and depended wholly
upon the wool. This system was carried out to such
an extent that in a few years the country became so
overstocked with sheep that very little mutton was or
could be produced. The butchers would not take the
trouble to go to the country for fat sheep and bullocks
when they could get them cheaper at the slaughter-
yards. As the price of meat rose in the other Colo-
nies, from increased home consumption and boiling-
down and preserving for the European market, it
naturally affected the market here, and a greater
demand gradually sprang up for colonial meat. But