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SHEEP BREEDING IN ONTARIO. 



By John Campbell, President Dominion Sheep Breeders' Association, 



Fairview Farm, Woodville, Ont. 



Sheep are again in favor. Go where one may, and talk with those 

 who years ago discarded sheep, the usual remark is, "I am going to 

 have a flock," and no wonder, when sheep and lambs sold last spring 

 at the "highest prices since the days of Adam," as one newspaper re- 

 porter put it, and at present are making, by far, the easiest money to be 

 got out of any line of farming. Four and a half to five dollars for 

 ordinary lambs to ship in May and June; seven to ten dollars for early- 

 dropped and well-fed ones for the Easter and soon-after markets, cause 

 people to think. Eight dollars and a quarter per ioo pounds quoted in 

 Toronto early last spring for grain-fed ten months' old lambs, with con- 

 siderably more paid for choice bunches, are prices which compel people 

 to stop and do some calculating. The question now agitating the minds 

 of many farmers is, "Does it pay to run the farm without a flock as well 

 as it would with ten to twenty breeding ewes to raise lambs for the 

 common market?" Or, we have a man say, as we did in Halton County 

 last winter, "Several years ago my farm was clean. I sold my flock. 

 A few years later weeds became troublesome. I bought sheep, and before 

 long weeds were disappearing." 



Another gentleman in the same county twenty years ago was a busy 

 man — too busy, he thought, to give any attention to his sheep. The 

 flock returns were disappointing. He decided to turn over the manage- 

 ment to his oldest boy, who was getting interested in the stock doings on 

 the farm. The ewes were ordinary long-wool grades. The boy began 

 by securing a ram of one of the Down breeds, continuing all the years 

 since the use of registered rams of the one breed : results, an improve- 

 ment from the first under the boy's care and management. Regular and 

 very profitable returns were obtained. Last year the best lambs of both 

 sexes were selected out for breeding purposes. The culls, carried along 

 in the fall on the rape field, and after snowfall were fed in addition a little 

 grain, were sold to go to Toronto market in early December, weighing 

 an average of 140 pounds at $6 per 100, or $8.40 for each lamb. 



Here are facts which furnish food for good solid thinking. Let me 

 add a few more. Last month while travelling in the northern part of 

 Victoria and Peterboro' and all over Haliburton, we made comparisons 

 of the results in dollars secured from the average dairy cow and the 

 growing of stockers in said sections with the raising of lambs for the 

 market. The breeding of all except in one locality was of the outrageous 

 sort. Just a male from the herd or flock selected and turned loose. 

 Allowing the cost of wintering five sheep to equal that of one cow, it was 

 found that the returns in the fall from an average crop of lambs would 

 be $21 plus five fleeces at $1.50 each = $28. 50 against $20 to $22 for the 

 cow. The lambs did the milking, and there was no time lost or expense 



