12

There will also be many miles of boundary fencing erected this season, so that a more satisfactory report may fairly be looked for next year. There are one or two flocks in the district very bad, the others are only slightly infected; but in a rough country like the East Coast, any sign of the disease becomes a serious matter.

I must again give expression to the opinion I held last year, that it is vain under the present Scab Act to hope that the disease will be eradicated; it does not sufficiently protect the careful man against his careless or injudicious neighbor, neither does it give the Inspector power to insist upon a proper method of dressing or dipping.

In such a rough district as this if flocks are dipped five or six times after shearing the sheep have not sufficient time to get into condition before winter. The ewes being in low condition at lambing, die in great numbers, and the lambs of the remainder are not worth saving. There is also a heavy loss in wool from low conditioned sheep.

Some sheep owners depend almost entirely upon dipping, which, I think, where the sheep are badly infected, is an error, when a careful hand dressing before dipping would be more certain to effect a cure, without so much weakening the sheep by so many times mustering and yarding them. There are no flocks in this district so large that it could not be done. I have frequently heard people when the last penful of sheep came to be dipped, and when the dip had become cooled and perhaps weakened in strength, say “Oh never mind putting any more stuff in, it is the last lot they will be all right,” forgetting if the disease is uncured on one sheep the whole flock would become reinfected.

A lime and sulphur dip has been extensively used, and in the case of most flocks the results have been satisfactory; in other flocks parties using the preparation have not been successful, and have, I think, unwisely become prejudiced against the mixture. I think the cause of failure in most cases may fairly be accounted for as follows:—

1st. Insufficient mustering.

2nd. Want of attention to maintaining a sufficient temperature in the preparation used.

3rd. The practice of making the preparation double strength and reducing it to the required strength by the addition of cold water instead of hot, thereby injuring the usefulness of the mixture.

Where unshorn sheep are allowed to remain with shorn and dipped sheep several weeks, it is evident the dipped sheep must become reinfected, and unless the preparation (whatever it may be) in the dip is kept up to a high temperature, it cannot prove successful; it will fail to penetrate a hard spot of scab in the time it takes a sheep to swim through the longest dip.

I have the honor to remain,

Sir,

Your obedient servant,

THOMAS TELFORD.

A. F. Halcombe, Esq.,
Provincial Secretary, Wellington.

Inspector of Sheep, East Coast District.

Foxton Highway District.

Provincial Secretary’s Office,

Wellington, 10th Feb., 1871.

It has been notified to this Office that at a meeting of the Ratepayers of the above district the following persons were elected a Board of Wardens:—

E. Robinson, Chairman

Geo. Nye

W. J. Loudon

E. S. Thynne

John Kebbell

John MacPherson

A. FOLLETT HALCOMBE,

Provincial Secretary.

Sheep Inspector’s Report.

Provincial Secretary’s Office,

Wellington, Feb. 11, 1871.

NOTICE has been given to this office by the Inspector of Sheep for the Rangitikei District, that he has granted a Clean Certificate to

W. B. RHODES, Esq.,

For the whole of his Sheep depasturing at Heaton Park Station, dated 1st February, 1871.

A. FOLLETT HALCOMBE,

Provincial Secretary.

Printed under the authority of the Government of the Province of Wellington, by THOMAS M’KENZIE, Printer for the time being to such Government.