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and the part of the animal from which the fat was removed, and to some extend upon the food of the animal; thus mutton fat is normally harder than beef fat, the fat from a mature animal is harder than that obtained from the younger animal, the fat from the male is generally harder than that from the female, the kidney fats are harder than the intestinal fats, animals fed on pasture generally yield a harder fat than those fed upon oil-cakes.

Throughout New Zealand, sheep and lambs derive their food almost exclusively from pasture and root crops, while oil-bearing feeding-stuffs are seldom if ever used to supplement the diet, hence the fats derived from these animals are largely formed from carbo-hydrates, but the chemical changes involved are still obscure. For all practical purposes the foodstuffs which constitute the diet of sheep and lambs are so similar throughout New Zealand as to introduce no material differences in the carbohydrates which are ultimately converted into fat within the animals.

In the tables, the reference to the mean Latitude South, indicates that of the works handling large quantities of stock for slaughter during a period varying each year from December to July inclusive; the range of Latitude South indicates the approximate latitudes within which most of the stock was received.

The maximum and minimum figures represent respectively the highest and lowest average for the period covered, thus in Table 1, for December-January, mean Latitude 40° S., the maximum of 47.6° for this period was in 1920, whilst the minimum 45.5° was in 1922; for February the maximum 48.7° was in 1925, the minimum 48.0° was in 1921; the seasonal maximum 48.2° was in 1925, the minimum 47.2° was in 1922. The average shows, in each instance, the numerical average for seven years.

No figures are given for the months August-November inclusive, for the reason that relatively a very small quantity of mutton tallow is manufactured during this period.

A study of the figures shows, as might be expected, that there is a gradual increase in the titre as the stock become more mature and older; in general, a certain peak is reached, and then some fall takes place, usually slight but definite; why this should occur at all seems obscure, for since the source of the fat is the carbohydrate content of the feeding stuffs, one does not expect a variation in the stearin-olein ratio to take place, as is indicated by the lower titre; there is the climatic factor, however, for usually the fall is more or less co-incidental with the onset of winter.

The figures also show that there is a definite relationship between the titre and the latitude; this is seen markedly when the seasonal average over seven years is compared with the mean Latitude from which the stock was drawn. For convenience these comparisons are shown in Table 3.