Sheep

To expand on and further clarify what is set out in the article Livestock (II-70 ff.), we reproduce an article by the distinguished agricultural engineer Torres Baptista. It contains some interesting details and deals in particular with the wool produced by Madeira’s sheep and its qualities.

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On Madeira we find acid pastures, and on Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) basic ones. Pastures derived from the weathering of acid rocks are suited to milk production, because the females find in their fodder substances suited to that purpose.

Hence a special and highly distinctive breed of cattle has developed through adaptation to the environment, and its selection ought to receive (if it does not already) the attention of the competent official bodies.

On Porto Santo, the weathering of limestones, strongly alkaline rocks unsuited to milk production, gives us animals with a fairly robust bone structure, and therefore fit and hardy for work.

But it is not cattle that I wish to speak about, but another kind of livestock that is hardly ever mentioned in Madeira: sheep.

The island of Madeira has about 16,000 sheep. Some live in flocks at pasture, and others are kept under stall-feeding or grazed on a tether.

The island of Porto Santo has about 600 head, which live in flocks, as I have had occasion to see. We all know that wool-bearing livestock can be used for three purposes: producing meat, producing milk and producing wool.

The economic solution to the problem lies in the choice between these purposes.

Let us see which it seems to me it should be. I do not think we should opt for meat production at the expense of the other two. The islands are well supplied with beef, and the cattle are very small in stature, so they do not require, as often happens on mainland Portugal, the slaughter of a smaller animal because consumption is low. Meat production therefore is not very necessary.

Moreover, since these functions do not exclude one another, meat can be obtained without detriment to the use of the wool or the milk. I therefore believe that breeding with meat in view would not improve the breeds in the economic direction required. With this function set aside, the other two remain. For Porto Santo there is no need to hesitate: the geological make-up of the land and the method of rearing on pasture tell us that wool production is the course to take. But Madeira? Various factors must be considered, and they must be weighed with great care. The geological make-up of the land gives us pastures suited to milk production, while the system of rearing in enclosures or on a tether gives us very coarse wool. In addition, the island has a dairy products (lacticínios) industry, which is limited to the production of butter. What use is made of the skimmed milk? I know of no manufacture of low-fat cheese, although I am told that it exists on the island, and nor do I know of a casein industry on the island. Madeira consumes a good deal of cow’s butter and exports much more still. The failure to use the skimmed milk is a waste which, in my view, represents a great deal of value. Now, ewe’s milk is richer in fat than cow’s milk, and if it were used and added to skimmed cow’s milk, it would yield not a low-fat cheese but a good cheese for consumption by all social classes and for export. As for the wool function of the Madeiran sheep, in animals that do not live in flocks the wool, although it may improve, will always be inferior.

We must bear in mind that the upper parts of the island, almost uninhabited and unused, lend themselves to pasture, and because of their great altitude a small-scale transhumance could even be practised, which would bring great advantages. In summer, after shearing, communal flocks could be formed by parish, making use of those pastures during the hot season to the advantage of all, and even of the animals’ health and the use of breeding rams.

With these suggestions made, and given that the wool of this archipelago is of the coarsest quality there is, it is urgent to improve it with blood brought in from outside. But should we aim at the production of wool or of milk? Which will be more economical and more suitable? For Porto Santo, the merino, and among the rams of this breed the ‘Fonte Boa’, fully meets the need, so that we need not resort to the blood of foreign breeds, since only improvement in wool has to be considered. For Madeira, if we wish to go for wool, the breed recommended for Porto Santo should be used for the white ewes, or the Alentejo black for the black ones, since there is no better black breed in the world than the one we possess. If we wish to go for milk production, I recommend the French Larzac or, so as not to go outside our own country – and I see no need to – the saloia ewe from the outskirts of Lisbon, which fully meets the need.

Now you will ask me for what reason. I will satisfy your curiosity: because I have found that Madeiran wool is so coarse that manufacturers will not take it even in a time of crisis, and that, as it stands, it is fit only for mattress-making, the production of rugs and coarse blankets, and rough goods, while the other economic functions of the sheep are not exploited to compensate.

But a suggestion is often adopted, and I do not wish the improvement to be made in favour of the wool function, for once it has been achieved, economic interests may later tell us that this was not the course that should have been followed, but rather that of milk.

The reverse could happen in the case of the milk function. The industries derived from the products of these functions are non-existent in Madeira, because there is no woollen industry and cheese-making is extremely limited.

It is therefore urgent to improve the breeds in one direction or the other, so that Madeira may tomorrow possess good raw material, and so that its industries, if they are attempted, may establish themselves in future on foreign markets, for labour it has, and more than enough. See Pastures and Livestock.

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