Results on the body and carcass composition of 7885 lambs sired by 371 rams of 15 different breeds mated to Romney cast-for-age ewes are given. Trials were run at the Ruakura Agricultural Centre and the Manutuke Research Station from 1963 to 1972. Lambs of the different breeds were slaughtered at the same average age so that differences between breeds/crosses in liveweight and carcass weight reflected differences in growth rate. Ranked from heaviest to lightest mean age-adjusted carcass weights, lambs sired by the Dorset Horn, Poll Dorset, Hampshire, Border Leicester, Suffolk, Dorset Down, South Suffolk, and South Dorset Down produced the heaviest carcasses, and those sired by the Cheviot, Southdown, English Leicester, and Ryeland were intermediate. The Lincoln, Merino, and Romney sired carcasses were lighter. The longer-woolled Romney, Merino, and Lincoln had lowest dressingout percentages based on full liveweights and the short finer-wooled breeds such as the Southdown, Dorset Down, and Poll Dorset/Dorset Horn dressed 2-3% higher. When compared at the same carcass weight, lambs sired by the Southdown followed by the Ryeland had the fattest carcasses and those A94091Received 26 September 1994; accepted 27 April 1995 1 Deceased sired by the Suffolk, Cheviot, and Dorset Horn produced the least fat, leanest carcasses. The Southdown, Dorset Horn, South Dorset Down, and Poll Dorset crosses had the largest eye muscle areas for carcasses of similar weight.

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The incidence in pastures of the spores of Sporidesmium bakeri, observed to grow saprophytically on dead pasture-plant m::lterial, has been studied with a simple spore-counting method.High spare counts were favoured by large amounts of dead and damaged plant materials and warm, moist conditions. A relationship has been established between relatively high counts of spores and facial eczema disease in lar.1bs.A correlation has been shown between spore counts ~nd "beaker test" values.The incidence of spores was higher in pasture samples from Gisborne and Palmers ton North than in samples from Hutt Valley, Lincoln and Gore.

1079Four trials are described in which the liveweight gains of hoggets grazing different types of pasture over the autumn period were compared.In the first trial, hoggets grazed on white clover (Trifolium repens L.) had a greater liveweight gain (2.9Ib per week) from 26 February to 4 June 1963, compared with a 2.0 lb gain of those on mature perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) plus white clover, l.Ilb on short (1-2 in.) perennial ryegrass plus white clover, and 0.61b on short perennial ryegrass.In the second trial, hoggets grazed on white clover-dominant pasture from II

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