420 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



SOME DIFFICULTIES 

 The old adage that a change of pasture is good for sheep is not 

 only true but it is essential. Sheep are great scavengers, they clean 

 up many of the weeds on the farm and along the fence rows. Many 

 claim that they will live on these and require very little attention; 

 but it is evident that the sheep, like other animals, respond to good 

 care and treatment, and the better they are cared for the more profit- 

 able they are. A change of pasture is more essential than a very 

 large range. Therefore it is better to have the pasture divided into 

 fields and change the flock from one to another every week or ten 

 days than to allow them to roam over the whole pasture at will. 

 And here comes in the fence problem. Fencing material is so scarce 

 on the averagfe farm, and timber so high in price that the farmer 

 can hardly afford to use it, and the material we buy is scarcely 

 worth putting up. Here, again the war looms up. Galvanizing 

 material is so expensive and difficult to get that much inferior wire 

 is on the market. Sheep require a closer fence than most other 

 stock. Hence this is one of the problems that is hard of solution. 

 Other animals may be kept in close quarters but not so with the 

 sheep. 



ENEMIES 



The worst enemy the sheep man has has to contend with, especially 

 the one who lives near a mining district, is the much discussed or 

 cussed dog. According to statistics, compiled by L. H. Wible, Sta- 

 tistican of the Department of Agriculture, the sheep killed by dogs 

 in 1913 were 6,393 and the number injured were 4,845. The average 

 price paid for sheep killed was $6.35 and for injured |2.85 or a 

 total of 154,322.70. Now how many dogs would it take to be worth 

 that much money? We think there is not one dog in a thousand 

 that is worth the price of the lead it would take to put him out of 

 existence. 



The number of dogs killed were 1,419 and this cost the State |1,- 

 719.56. The amount expended for the payment of horses bitten by 

 mad dogs was |2,593.37 while the amount expended for dog tags 

 was 12,813.31. 



We find further that the number of sheep in Pennsylvania declined 

 from 1,531,066 in 1900 to 883,072 in 1910, a decline of 43%. From 

 one of the leading sheep states of the east, we have fallen away until 

 the last census reports that only 11.6% of our farmers report sheep 

 among their livestock. 



Other causes may enter into this, such as tariff tinkering, and 

 diseases of sheep, also the fence problem of which I have already, 

 spoken, but the dog is the principal cause. 



In Washington county, the great sheep growing county of the 

 State, last year the funds for paying sheep claims were exhausted, 

 and the claims were three years in advance of payment. It was 

 further reported that the number of dogs in that county was one 

 to every three taxables, while some of the towns or villages did 

 not report so many, it was believed that the assessors were negligent. 

 A friend in Cambria county informs me that when a farmer under- 

 took to rid his farm of dogs that the dog owners burned his barn 

 to the ground. 



