Page:Notes on New Zealand (1892).pdf/115

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
NOTES ON NEW ZEALAND.
105

farmer, it should sell at 21s. and upwards. This fact I can only account for by the increase of stock in a proportion even greater than that of the demand. Cattle in New Zealand cannot be said at present to pay as well as sheep, for, in the first place, they produce no wool, and, in the second place, they will not fetch as good prices proportionately. Thus a lamb some five or six months old, according to prices in the spring of 1890, brings 8s. to 10s., and a fat bullock at three or four years £8 to £10. A calculation based upon these prices will show that the percentage of profit to the farmer upon the sale of the lamb