The property of the Aylesbury Dairy Company, St Petersburgh Place, Bayswater, W.

exactly the same. The demand for Polled and Shorthorn bulls was brisk, and except in the case of the youngest lots there was no difficulty in effecting transactions, little over half-a-dozen being turned out of the ring unsold. In point of quality the Polled bulls were by far the best draft that has been produced at the joint sale. The Shorthorn bulls were somewhat deficient in average merit, although comprising a considerable proportion of exceptionally good animals. The actual results of the sale are published in the Banffshire Journal, giving the names and addresses of the purchasers, and the prices made in each individual case-a marked contrast to the action recently taken by the Birmingham Exhibition Society on a similar occasion. The summary is as follows:-151 Shorthorn bulls averaged £25 16s. 4d.; 10 Shorthorn females £24 Os. 10 d.; 41 Polled bulls, £24 3s. 2‡d.; and 13 Polled females, £19 12s. 6d.

The annul show and sale of pure-bred Shorthorns and Scotch Polled cattle was held at Perth, March 17, by Messrs. Macdonald and Fraser. The stock exhibited comprised 132 Shorthorn bulls, 28 Shorthorn cows and heifers, 21 Polled bulls, and 11 Polled cows and heifers; together, 196 animals. The prices realised for the bulk of the animals were from £20 to £30.

At the sale of pure-bred Shorthorn cattle, consisting of drafts from the herds of Sir W. Lawson, Bart., and Mr. S. P. Foster, conducted by Mr. John Thornton a Brayton, March 17, the following averages were realised -6 from Mr. Foster's herd averaged £58 19s. 6d., and 17 from Sir W. Lawson's heid averaged £33 13s. 10d.; together, 23 animals averaged £40 5s. 9d.

We are requested to record the following increase of pure-bred Shorthorns in the herd of Mr. Richard Reynell, Killymore, Killucan, Ireland: October 3, 1879, a roan heifer calf, sire Cato (41193), dam Hawthorn; Nov. 14, 1879, a roan bull calf, sire Agamemuon, (39357), dam Isabella Broughton; Jan. 13, 1880, a roan heifer calf, sire Agamemnon (39357), dam Violet 7th.

A destructive fire has occurred on one of the Duke of Portland's farms near Ayr, and about forty of the cattle were burned to death.

From the Buenos Ayres Standard, of Feb. 18, we learn that the Corrientes Government has put a new tax of 17 cents (8.) on every hide turned out of the new saladero at Mocoreta. The Ferro Carril (Con ordia) calls attention to the monstrous growth of taxation in the Argentine Republic, aud publishes a table of duties which shows the suicidal policy of the Provincial Governments towards their best industries, whilst all cattle may be exported from these Provinces to the Banda Oriental (Uruguay) Republic, and to Brazil.

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on

artificial state of matters. The cow's greatly improved blood-making capabilities have been in increasingly active operation for several months, nourishing and growing her big calf. In former years she has yielded four or five times the amount of milk given by a cow in a natural state. The vascular system of the udder is extraordinarily developed. If all goes well with such a bountiful cow, the full stream of rich blood which hitherto has been directly nourishing the calf must be promptly turned to the manufacture of milk. If any hitch occurs in this change of function, mischief is sure to result. If, at this critical period, any of the important purifying or excret. ing channels are torpid or tardy in the performance of their duty, milk fever is apt to ensue. The skin, from exposure to cold, sometimes fails in its important service, and congestion of internal organs supervenes. The bowels in like manner, if locked up, leave noxions matters in the blood, which retard vascular and nervous circulation. To prevent this unfavourable contingency, reiterated doses of salts are wisely ordered both before and after calving. Precisely the same principle applies to the udder. If it does not take on its duty fully and quickly after nutrition, there accumulates in the blood materials which should be eliminated, and which, when retained, promptly paralyse the great nervous centres, and develop the train of symptoms which constitute milk fever. If this, the generally accepted view of the production of milk fever, be correct, it follows that full early and repeated milking, by encouraging the flow of milk, helps to combat the tendency to milk fever. It is unwise to leave milk in the udder at any time, and especially when the organ, as well as the cow herself, is in a sensitive, irritated state. Ia hot weather particularly, rentention is besides prone to cause irritation, and such udder irritation is liable to be propagated to the nervous centres, which in cows of a certain type and condition appear specially liable to derange ment at the time of calving. It is not worth while to controvert the absurd supposition that taking all the milk out of the udder starved it, and so allowed the cow to ca'ch cold.' If on this plea milk is to be left undrawn, it might as reasonably be suggested to promote the an mal's warmth by endeavouring to retard the action of its bowels and bladder also."

A gentleman who has spent considerable time the past season among the large stock farmers in Colorado gives some facts in Harper's Monthly respecting the profitableness of sheep husbandry. These facts are obtained from the practical operations of large ranchmen who make a speciality of this industry. He takes as a basis a flock of 2,000 assorted ewes, two to three years old, bought at 3 dollars (128. 6.1.) per head, 6,000 dollas (£1,250); and 60 rams at an average of 30 dollars (£6 5s.) each, 1,800 dollars (£375). A pair of mules and saddle horse at a cost of 275 dollars (£57 5s. 101.), and working capital 1,900 dollars (£395 163. 8d.). Capital invested, say, say October 1st, 14,000 dollars (£2,916 13s. 4d.). The result of the first year is estimated to show a net profit of 2.596 dollars 40 cents (£51) 188. 4d.), and using the same process in estimating the second year, and adding 15 per cent. to value to the 1,500 lambs, and adding also the value of the wool from the lambs, and then deducting the items of expense lesses, the ranchman has as net profit for second year, 3,406 dollars 40 cents (£709 133. 4.1.). Estimating by same process, adding lambs and product, and dedacting expense and loss, the profit for third year is 4.899 dollars 90 cents (£1,020 6s. 3d.). These estimates apply to one who has bought a ranch worth 4,000 dollars (£833 6s. 8d.), with cabins and corrals on it, and large enough to accommodate 5,000 head of sheep. The yield of wool

and

is put at five pounds each for the ewes, worth 21 ceuts

(10.) per pound, and 17 pounds for the rams at 15 cents (71d.) per pound. The one-year old lambs average four pounds at 21 cents (10d.) per pound. Thus it is seen that there is profit in sheep husbandry to a careful, practical man with some capital to invest, enough to go at once into business without delay of fitting up, and one may gather, from these facts, something of the nature of the business in the middle Western States.

The decline of the sheep-breeders' industry in the colony of Queensland has been made the subject of editorial comment in the columns of the Queenslander (Brisbane), January 10. It is therein stated that there has been a gradual decline during the past ten years. “And yet” continues the Queenslander "there has been nothing in the soil, herbage, or climate of Queensland to forbid rather everything to have encouraged the expectation, in any person reviewing the condition of the pastoral industry ten years ago, that we should by this time have been able to reckon on a total number of 20,000,000 instead of something like 7,000,000 sheep. The falling off in the number of sheep is the result of our own acts, it has not in any way been forced upon us by circumstances. Except a comparatively small belt of east country, the whole of Southern and Central Queensland is well adapted for sheep raising, most of it being unequalled for quality in Australia. In fact, owing to the elevation of the interior plateaux the winter frosts necessary to maintain the quality of wool extend far to the north of the tropical line. Nor can the want of railway communication be admitted by any person who takes the trouble to investigate the matter as a sufficient explanation of the decrease. In the districts naturally fitted for sheep that are within sufficiently easy distance from port there is ample room for twice our present stock. The Darling Downs, Maranoa, Leichhardt, Kennedy, and Eastern Barcoo, when first taken up were unmistakably sheep districts, and, during the ten years that our stock has been declining, the prevailing rates of carriage there have never been sufficiently high to prevent sheep-raising from being profitable; and no one will deny if their grazing capabilities were fully used they would maintain fourteen million sheep. It may be urged that some parts of the country named are no longer good sheep country; they are spoiled by too much grass seed, too many wallabies, and other nuisances to the sheep farmer. But the fact supports, it does not disprove, our conteution-it was good sheep country when first occupied. Overstocking and reckless management have spoiled it. Nature had done her part, but man in his blindness wasted her bouuties. We have no means of ascertaining how far the process of deterioration has gone, but we have it on the authority of the Premier that the sheep are going further west, and that we must follow them with our railways. If we are to understand that the transfer has been rendered necessary by any general deterioration of country admirably fitted only a few years ago for sheep-raising, then the prospect would be indeed a deplorable one. if we are to spoil country at so rapid a rate, we shall bardly be able to overtake good sheep country with our railways-it will recede before them as the mirage which deceives the eyes of thirsty travellers on our Western pains. For our part we see no reason to believe that the process of deterioration has either gone far or wide enough to account for the decline in the number of sheep in certain districts. Statistics show that the newer dis tricts have not gained anything like what the others have lost when the natural increase on the recently formed stations is taken into account. The decline has been general. Our squatters have deliberately got rid of their sheep, not because their country had been spoiled, or because it was unsuitable, but because they preferred to go into cattle, and that during a time when our squatters

For,

found sheep a more profitable description of stock. This brings us very near to the root of the evil. The preference for cattle over sheep is due to the fact that the former require very little expenditure in the shape of permanent improvement. Cattle can feed long distances from water; a run on which there are one or two permanent waterholes will do for this kind of stock. Sheep require water close to their grazing grounds, and a sheep ruo must have permanent waterholes in a great many places. This, in country like ours, demands the expendi ture of capital in water storage. Besides, the appliances for working a sheep run successfully are much more costly than those needed for cattle-proper machinery for wash ing wool clean, well-arranged shearing sheds; and improvements of this kind cost a great deal of money. The attractions possessed by cattle for a Queensland squatter lay in the fact that when he had purchased his herd he was not compelled to go to any appreciable expense ia preparing his country for their maintenance. The extremely liberal terms on which pastoral country is leased by the Government enabled such a one to command a wide extent of grazing grouud for a trifling annual pay. ment, and when a dry season came on his cattle could travel many miles from water in search of pasturage. Sheep owners, on the contrary, have had to begin with a heavy outlay, and to provide for a considerable annud expenditure. In short, of the two great divisions of the pastoral industry, the one-sheep breeding, with its great ultimate profits-would possess most attractions for the man who intends to reinain in the country, and can afford to wait for wealth; cattle raising, for the impatient occupaut of a bush tract in a colony which he never regards as a permanent home, aud who is auxious to realise quickly some profit which he can take elsewhere. The advantages offered to squatters by this colony are greater than in New South Wales; their rents are lower, their tenure more secure, and it can scarcely be maintaiued that the climate of the interior in Queensland renders it more objectionable as a place of residence than the great sheep districts of the inother-colony. It must be remembered that there is a radical difference between New South Wales and all but the older settled parts of Queensland. There quatting preceded the squatting tenure. The country was occupied by the graziers before the Government began to define their position by legal enactments. Hence the grazier took root in the soil naturally, and pastoral occupation became settlement of a very real kind. When the free selector came subsequently to ask for his share of the soil he found men firmly settled on it who resented his intrusion, and subsequent legisia. tion defined the conditions on which the struggle between occupier and intruder should be carried on. With us on the contrary, the squatter went out into the wilderness under the direction of laws which contemplated extinction of his tenure at some undefiued date, which might be distant, or which a gold rush or some exceptional movement of population might bring very near. Hence the Queensland squatter never felt himself bound to the soil, be never for a moment lost sight of the fact that his occupation was in its very nature transitory. The New South Wales squatters have always had a tendency to regard their runs as estates in their permanent occupation; the Queensland run-holders, as stretches of pasturage from which they ought to make as much profit as possible before it was taken from them. Hence the tendency in the one colony to sheep, in the other to cattle; permaneat investmeut in the hope of a large future profit as against small temporary expenditure with the hope of smaller but more rapid returns. There can be little doubt that on a Queensland grazing farin, where the excellent native herbage can be supplemented by any description of feed that it may be thought advisable to cultivate, it is easy to make sure of