The distribution of the 23 million sheep and 39 million goats of British India is as shown below:- The reason for the small numbers of sheep found in Bengal, Burma and Assam is sufficiently clear; the climatic conditions in these provinces are il suited to sheep. The small number of sheep in the Central Provinces is less readily explained, but the causes at work need not be examined here. From the point of view of numbers, much the most important sheepbreeding province is Madras. The sheep kept in the central districts of Madras alone are not far short in number of those found in the Punjab, and much exceed those of any other province. Unexpectedly, too, sheepbreeding is largely followed in all parts of the presidency, except in the very wet districts on the west coast. The general importance of sheep appears to be associated with the rainfall distribution of the province which is better suited to them than it is in most other parts of India. It may be noted that sheep are found in the largest numbers in those districts of Madras in which the south-west monsoon is light. In contrast to most other provinces where sheep are usually owned by nomadic herdsmen, the majority of the owners of flocks are settled in villages and graze their flocks, which vary in size from a few dozen to over a thousand, at no great distance from their homes. The sheep are usually of very poor quality. They produce at most two pounds of wool annually and the fleeces consist of hair rather than wool. In some parts of the central districts, especially in Coimbatore, better animals are bred and the wool is of fair quality. Sheep in the north-west of India generally belong to nomadic shepherds; a number of breeds are recognised, the two most interesting being the dumba or fat-tailed sheep with long coarse wool, mainly valued for its mutton, and, in the south of the Punjab, the Bikanir breed which is reputed to grow the best wool in India. The whole of the Rajputana Agency, from Bikanir southwards, contains sheep of a relatively good class; but, except in Ajmer-Merwara, where the number of sheep is large in relation to area, the land on which these flocks graze lies outside British India. Large flocks belonging to nomadic shepherds are common in several parts of the Bombay Presidency. Bombay wool, though at one time considered good, is now classed by buyers as of low quality. It is, in fact, very variable; some animals grow fair wool, others little more than hair. Herdsmen expect to make from twelve annas to a rupee for fleeces, and a considerable part of their income is derived from sheep-folding. The best sheep in the United Provinces are found in districts such as Muttra, Moradabad and Bundelkhand in which the rainfall is light; there are also some good breeds in certain Himalayan tracts; but the sheep of the province are generally very poor. With the exception of Patna sheep, which have long had some local reputation, the sheep of Bihar and Orissa and Bengal are of small size and produce wool of little value. The numerous breeds of sheep recognised in India cannot be described here, nor can we examine their management. It may, however, be noted that it is usual to shear flocks twice yearly; that the average yield of wool is about two pounds per annum ; that, in most localities, mutton is regarded by sheep breeders as of more importance than wool, and that the general management of flocks is very poor. As in the case of sheep, Madras heads the list of Indian provinces in the number of goats kept. The United Provinces come second, Bengal third, and Bihar and Orissa fourth. Wherever sheep are largely kept, goats are associated with them; but only in Madras do general conditions cause sheep to be the favourite; in most provinces, the hardier goat is much the more common. Climatic conditions are not the only reason for this preference which also arises from the value of the goat as a milk producer. Many breeds of goats are kept on the plains of India but they may be grouped into three types; the milking goat found nearly everywhere in villages; the nondescript animal which accompanies the flocks of sheep and, like them, is used for providing meat and skins, and for folding; and goats kept for the valuable hair which they produce. The pat (pattu) goat is a distinct breed found in the Himalayas; but at lower elevations, in Sind, Rajputana and Baluchistan, may be found breeds of goats producing hair varying in value from little more than that of the common goat of the plains to a quality approaching that of the pat goat of the Himalayas. EARLY BREEDING MENTS. SHEEP 156. The East India Company gave long and assiduous attention to the subject of wool improvement:* indeed it would appear from old records that, if our enquiry had been held a century ago, we should have had more proposals for sheep improvement placed before us than appear in the volumes of evidence we have published. * See Watt's Dictionary of the Economic Products of India; Calcutta, 1893. ArticleSheep and Goats. One or two of the many experiments made in the past may be mentioned as an indication of the attention formerly given to livestock improvement in India, and because of their bearing on the policy which should now be adopted. About the year 1826, the Bengal Government spent Rs. 9,450 in acquiring a flock of country ewes and importing forty merino rams and ewes. An experiment in crossing was carried on with these animals in the United Provinces, but the cross-breds did not stand the climate well and, in 1832, the experimental flock was dispersed by distributing it to hill chiefs. About the time the Bengal Government's experiment terminated, a Bombay military officer drew the attention of the Directors of the East India Company to the possibilities of sheep breeding in Gujarat and the Deccan. In 1835, the Directors sent a consignment of 120 selected sheep of several breeds from England; two farms were opened near Ahmednagar, and a Bombay officer, who had a good practical acquaintance with the management of sheep," was placed in charge of them. For a time, success appeared likely; as a marked improvement in wool resulted from crossing, neighbouring sheep owners sent their ewes to the farm rams, and many half-bred rams were distributed. Prospects were favourably reported on in 1843, but the experiment seems to have been abandoned soon afterwards. inference from the information on record is that the country-bred rams failed to give satisfaction. 66 The Many similar experiments both by the State and by private individuals were made elsewhere, especially in the Punjab, Bengal and Madras; but except that they established that the merino breed is, in general. better suited than the mutton sheep of England for crossing with Indian sheep, none of them led to any useful results. It is clear that the enthusiasm of some of the early experimenters was greater than their knowledge of sheep breeding. One, for example, established a flock at Cherrapunji which has a rainfall of some 450 inches! But it is also clear that quite a number of those taking part in the experiments were careful and observant flockmasters. The reasons why the many experimental flocks established and the hundreds of sheep imported, during a period of experimental work which lasted over half a century, should have exercised so slight an influence seem to us well worth careful examination by livestock experts beginning similar experiments at the present time. FAILURES. 157. Lack of organisation, with consequent lack of continuity in the REASONS FOR PAST work, was certainly in part responsible for failure. The efforts, in most cases, centred round individuals and, when they disappeared, the flocks disappeared also. But organised work was not always lacking; in Bengal, there was a cattle committee of the Agri-Horticultural Society whose members took much interest in sheep breeding and whose efforts were long continued. In Bombay, too, interest seems to have been fairly widespread, and the indications are that it was the flocks, not the interest, that failed. And to keep provincial breeders at their task there was, in the earlier years, the Board of Directors of the East India Company in London, looking expectantly for good Indian wool, ready, as we have seen, to incur considerable expense, and not likely to let experiments drop if results of permanent value seemed probable. We are of opinion that the failure of the efforts we have described was largely due to the eagerness of all concerned to secure immediate results. Early breeders were flattered by the favourable reports of wool buyers, for the improvement in wool produced by a cross was remarkable. For example, in the case of the Bombay experiment, London wool brokers reported the fleece of a Deccan ewe as being worth 3d. per lb., while that of a shearling merino-Deccan cross from Poona was valued at 15d. The truth indeed appears to be that in watching the wool, breeders forgot the sheep. The temptation to secure immediate results besets the breeder in India. Most kinds of livestock in this country are of low quality and the change produced by the use of imported superior sires is pronounced in the halfbred. Improvement by selection, on the other hand, is a slow business. It did not appeal to the enthusiastic sheep breeders of last century, who no doubt realised that they themselves would see but little of the results of their labours. Thus they failed to secure, by selection, a solid foundation for their flocks, and nothing now remains to testify to the efforts they made to effect improvement. CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR SUCCESS IN SHEEP BREEDING. 158. This is the principal deduction which we consider is to be drawn from the sheep-breeding work done in India in the nineteenth century, and we, therefore, recommend that the main energies of livestock experts now resuming the work should be concentrated on a study of the best indigenous types, and that the building up of a ewe flock with definite characteristics should be aimed at, before modification of these characteristics by crossing is decided upon. In most provinces, livestock experts have already established flocks of considerable size, or are in process of building them up. The expressions of opinion we heard on the prospects of sheep breeding were sanguine; more sanguine indeed for the immediate future than the existing position and the difficulties to be encountered seem to us to warrant. We recognise the great scope for improvement, and we believe that, in spite of obvious difficulties, great improvements are possible; but the prospects of the get-rich-quick" adventurer are no better in the twentieth than they were in the nineteenth century. 66 Space will not permit of an examination of the position in the different provinces, and we propose only to refer to recent experiments in northern India. Between 1912 and 1923, sheep breeding experiments were in progress in the United Provinces. The lessons to be drawn from the failures of the early breeders were noted, and, in this case, the crossing experiments were made on selected country ewes. Merino and Romney Marsh rams 66 were used. The merino rams were used on country ewes, and also on the crossed progeny, grading up by stages to the pure bred sire, until lambs of seven-eighths merino strain were obtained. The country ewes were of two breeds, Bikanir and United Provinces. An interesting report by the Veterinary Adviser to the Government of the United Provinces, published in 1926, describes these experiments and gives a number of useful particulars regarding the conditions under which sheep are kept in the United Provinces. The experiments showed a very marked improvement in the first cross with the merino; the wool was four times the value of the country product. Half the three-quarter-bred merino sheep were a distinct improvement on their dams, others showed no advance, and—a significant point-a few deteriorated. The best threequarter-bred merinos, when mated with a pure merino, produced very good wool which was valued at merino rates, but the sheep began to lack carcase and robustness." It was at this stage that Romney Marsh rams were introduced to confer size and mutton qualities; but, owing to financial reasons, this series of experiments came to an end soon afterwards. One further significant point must be noted. Bikanir ewes gave better results than those of the United Provinces. Experiments in crossing with merinos are now being carried out at Hissar, where the conditions are favourable for sheep breeding. The half-bred sheep produced there is a very useful animal but, when these have again been crossed with merinos, the same defects in substance noted in the United Provinces have appeared. Light is thrown on the quality and character of native flocks by the fact that Hissar half-bred rams used on local ewes have proved to be distinctly useful. There can be no question that, in improving the very poor sheep of most parts of the country, crossing can be resorted to with advantage. In these circumstances, the first objective of the breeder must be to secure rams that can stand Indian conditions, and these rams must be bred within the country and based largely on indigenous stock. In spite of the satisfaction which has been expressed with the first results of using half-bred Hissar rams, we are of opinion that no half-bred ram is likely to be of real use to the stock breeder in India. It is true that one case has been discovered in which half-bred rams give satisfaction in Britain; but the chances of this occurring in this country are remote. We do not, therefore, recommend that livestock experts should aim at producing half-bred rams for distribution. But if the half-bred is rejected, a difficulty arises; for, as we have seen above, when attempts have been made to grade closer to imported rams, defects at once appear which result in an unsuitable breeding sheep. Thus, at the moment, there is no obvious method of securing rams suitable for distribution, The difficulty we believe to be due to the mongrel character of the ewe stock; the useful contribution which the breeder desires them to make to the new type of sheep at which he aims is not forthcoming; and the point we wish to emphasise is that it will not be forthcoming until, by a process of continuous selection, some degree of purity is acquired by the ewes forming the foundation stock with which experiments in crossing should begin. The ewes used in the experiments in the United Provinces |