No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 244 



increase has been fairly constant. The increased mutton consump- 

 tion during the last seventeen years is quite strikingly shown by 

 the total number of animals slaughtered at the four centres, Chi- 

 cago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Omaha for each year. Beginning 

 in 1889, the number of sheep slaughtered at these four centres was 

 1,476,000. There has been an almost uniform increase since that 

 time to the year 1906, when the number^slaughtered was 6,116,000. 



The prosperous condition of the sheep business in the last few 

 years is well expressed by the Drovers' Journal in its year book. 

 Speaking of the year 1905, it says: "It is hardly necessary to say 

 again that this has been the year of greatest prosperity for flock 

 masters in every part of America. In Chicago record-breaking re- 

 ceipts have been handled at the highest prices ever paid for every 

 class of market sheep offered. Sheep to the value of $23,700,000 have 

 been sold in Chicago this year, bringing the owners |5,271,000 more 

 than the value of their crop last year. Lambs selling as high as 

 |8.2o, with feeding lambs as high as |6.S5; prime wethers up to 

 $6.25; ewes, |6.10." 



"Export trade in sheep this year has shown a falling off to 78,373 

 head, against 147,915 head last year, and 210,216 head for 1901, the 

 record year in sheep export from Chicago. This falling off is ex- 

 plainable by prices so high in Chicago as to render exporting sheep 

 the last half of this vear verv dangerous. Onlv 108 head have been 

 exported the last two months of this year." 



Speaking of the year 1906, the same authority says: ''The past 

 year has been the greatest one the sheep men of this country ever 

 enjoyed, prosperity extending to every branch of the trade. A 

 record-breaking run was readily handled on the highest average 

 prices ever noted on the Chicago market. Prime native lambs sold 

 as high as |8.50, and range lambs in season made $8.40, these prices 

 standing the highest ever paid here, and prime wethers brought 

 $6.50, being 25 cents higher than the best brought on the market 

 the previous year. The movement of feeding sheep and lambs from 

 Chicago broke all records, and the bulk of the stock was taken out 

 at the highest prices in the memory of the oldest traders on this 

 market." 



Two years ago, J. E. Wing, in Bulletin No. 140 of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Department of Agriculture, said: "Just now is an especially 

 favorable time to embark seriously in the business of producing 

 mutton, and incidentally wool upon the farm. The taste for mutton 

 is growing with leaps and bounds in the United States." The 

 reports from the Stock Yards just quoted show that this prophesy 

 has been abundantly verified up to the present time, and there is 

 no indication of a change in the near future. A taste for mutton 

 has been acquired by the American people, and a better type of 

 mutton is being produced. The sheep are being marketed earlier 

 in life, while the quality of the meat is still good. If wool becomes 

 so valuable that it is more profitable to keep wethers for the wool 

 alone than to sell them as lambs or yearlings, it is possible that 

 a decline in mutton eating will be the result. Such conditions, 

 however, are not yet in sight. The Breeders' Gazette of May 22, 

 states that up to that time there had been a shortage of 200,000 

 head of sheep at the five principal Western markets, as compared 

 with the same period in 1906. 



