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ALFONSO 2ND.

Red, white-faced; calved 11th July, 1892; bred by Mr. Henry Beattie, Mount Aitken, Victoria.

Sire-Alfonso (imported), bred by Mr. Green, The Whitten, Kington, Herefordshire.

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Calved 13th August, 1886; bred by the Hon. J. H. Angas, Collingrove, South

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Sire-Turner's Duke

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Goolwa
Bringwood

Pigeon, imported by C. B. Fisher.

All these took first prizes at South Australian shows.

Jeannie Deans

has taken 7 first and Champion prizes, and was sold, with her bull calf, for 200 guineas, to Mr. Angas.

The pedigrees of the five handsome young Hereford bulls shown in our illustration are as follow::

ALBERT VICTOR.

Calved 30th October, 1898; bred by the Hon. William Allan, M.L.C., Braeside,

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When we come to the consideration of the prizes taken by many of these cattle, we are confronted with numberless medals and ribbons. For instance, the winnings of Sir Henry Loch, from 1887 to 1895, are as follow:—

First prize in 1887, as a bull calf, at West Bourke Show (Vic.)

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1889 aged

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1887, in yearling class, at Bacchus Marsh (Vic.)

Champion prize in 1887, as best Hereford, any age, male or female, at Bacchus March (Vic.)

First prize in 1888, as a 2-year-old, Bacchus Marsh (Vic.)

Champion prize in 1889, as best Hereford, Bacchus Marsh (Vic.)

First prize in 1890, in aged class, West Bourke (Vic)

First prize in 1890, in aged class, at the Royal Association's Show, Melbourne, beating Mr. Angas's champion, General Gordon.

First prize in 1×91, in 2-year-old and over class, at Tenterfield (N.S.W.)

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1891, in 3-year-old class

1892, in 2-year-old class

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Special Reserve Champion prize for best Hereford bull, over 24 months, at the National Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition, Brisbane (Q.), in 1892. First prize and Champion for best Hereford bull in the yards, at Tenterfield, N.S.W., in 1895, and similar prizes for the best class at the same show. First prize, in aged class, at the Brisbane Exhibition, in 1895.

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for best bull, with progeny, Brisbane Exhibition, in 1895. Special prize for best Hereford Champion prize for best Hereford

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Space will not allow of the enumeration of all the performances of members of this justly celebrated herd. Those who are interested in the matter will doubtless be willingly afforded an opportunity of finding out all about them by Mr. Allan, to whose courtesy we are indebted for the above particulars.

BLACK MERINO SHEEP.

Another specialty of Braeside is its flock of black merino sheep, which Mr. Allan started twenty-two years ago, and formed the nucleus of the flock from stock purchased from the well-known breeders, the late Sir Joshua Peter Bell, Sir Patrick Jennings, the Hon. J. D. Macansh, Messrs. Kent and Wienholt, and C. B. Fisher; also he got some of the ewes from Murrumbidgee and Billabong breeders in Riverina Mr. Allan, noticing that, in spite of drastic culling, black sheep occurred in all flocks, was struck with the idea that possibly sheep were

*Those dams marked with an asterisk are purebred Hereford cows, bought by Mr. Allan from Messrs. Robertson Brothers, Colac, Western Victoria, in 1878, and bred by them from pure imported stock.

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originally black. To test his theory, he put pure black merino sires to black merino ewes, and found that right from the initiation the experiment was a complete success-the lambs dropped being all black. An almost universal characteristic of these sheep is a small white spot on the forehead, and another on the tip of the tail.

Mr. Allan continued to breed from black sires and ewes for many years until the flock reached 2,000, at which it remained for some years, and now has been reduced to 20 rams, 600 ewes, and 250 wethers and weaners — a total of 870. Our illustrations give a very good idea of the rams and ewes. The former especially form a very remarkable-looking group with their black faces, large curved horns, and bright eyes. Their light legs give the impression that they are exceedingly fleet of foot; that they can jump in a surprising manner, we had ocular demonstration.

The blackness of these sheep does not stop at the wool, but extends to the skin also, and Mr. Allan makes it a sine qua non that the tongue and the roof of the mouth shall be black as well. The flesh of the animal is darker in colour than that of the white sheep, sweeter, and has a distinctly “gamey" flavour, akin to the taste of venison. It is thought that these sheep are much hardier and less liable to disease than the white ones.

Very high prices have been obtained for the wool. In 1886 Mr. Allan showed at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, a bale of black ewes' wool of seventy fleeces, about 370 days' growth, weight 2 cwt. 3 qr. 17 lb. The sheep had been fed on natural grasses only. At the London wool sales in 1885 this wool brought 1s. 6d. per lb. for the fleece all round in the greasethat is to say, it realised just double what white wool of a similar character grown on the same country brought at that date. The black wool was principally used at that time, and still is, for undyed underclothing under Dr. Jaeger's system; also, there is at times a demand for black wool for certain continental religious orders who have to wear undyed woollen clothing. Latterly it fell in price through successful dyed imitations being much used. Last December the Braeside black wool brought 10 d. in Brisbane for the fleece. Besides the black sheep, there are 20 Lincoln rams (3 of which are imported), 300 pure and grade Lincoln ewes, and 150 Lincoln wethers and weaners. Braeside is worked in conjunction with Mr. Allan's Western Whyenbah Station, on the Balonne.

The black sheep cut from one-half to three-quarters of a pound less wool than the white ones. One sheep to the acre is the carrying capacity of Braeside, which is in great contrast to the Western country, where four acres are required for a sheep in ordinary seasons. They are run in paddocks with seven wire fences. These fences cost from £32 to £35 per mile. In concluding this notice, we print a few interesting extracts from Mr. Gibson's excellent work on "Sheepbreeding in the Argentine." on pages 267 to 271.

THE ERADICATION OF CHARLOCK.

AMONGST the many members of the genus Brassica (or cabbage family), few are such a troublesome pest to the wheat farmer as that known as "charlock." In the wheat-fields of the Downs, several varieties occur, especially Brassica sinapis, but the charlock is more probably amongst the rest, and it exceeds all others in its destructive effect on young growing crops. It gets ahead of the latter, and, before they are strong enough to resist the intrusive stranger, it takes possession with disastrous effect. The weed is easily recognised by its white, yellow, or blue flowers. The seed is very difficult to separate from the pod; in fact, the threshing machine which will do it has not yet been invented. Neither can the seed be easily separated from the grain, especially from oats. Several experiments have been made in Europe, with a view to its destruction, by spraying with solutions of sulphate of copper or of iron. The most successful of these experiments was made on 17th May at the farm of the Agricultural College at Uckfield, in Sussex, where spraying was done by hand and horse-sprayers, the latter proving infinitely superior to the former. The plots of oats, tares, and beans were divided by steps of unsprayed, to show them in

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