154 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



food; third, accompanying the fact that the germinating properties of seeds 

 are destroyed in the process of digestion, is the known proclivity of sheep for 

 a variety in forage, and the combination of these qualities make them at once 

 the most perfect scavengers of the farm. In the bush pastures and neglected 

 fence corners, on the stubbles and summer fallows, they are doing double duty 

 of gaining a sustenance for themselves and helping to clean up the waste 

 places and rid our lands of noxious weeds. 



Another distinctive characteristic of good sheep, when they are properly 

 cared for by their breeder (with the exception of high priced thoroughbred 

 breeding stock), is, that if they die the loss, if any, is so infinitely small, that 

 we claim they never die in debt. Dr. Eandall, in his report on fine wool 

 husbandry in 1862, very tersely explains this position, and I will use his words. 

 "On no other domestic animal is the hazard by death so small. If it dies at 

 birth, it has consumed nothing. If it dies the first winter, its wool will pay 

 for what it has consumed up to that period. If it lives to be sheared once, it 

 brings its owner into debt to it, and if the ordinary and natural course of wool 

 production and breeding goes on, that indebtedness will increase uniformly 

 and with accelerating rapidity until the day of its death. If the horse or the 

 steer die at three or four years old, or the cow before breeding, the loss is 

 almost a total one." 



We find embodied in this statement a fact which must be appiirent to all, 

 that sheep commence very quickly paying dividends to their owners in the 

 fleece they bear. This dividend is declared at probably the most opportune 

 time possible for the farmer. Shearing commonly takes place in June, so the 

 clip, which readily brings cash, goes into the market during that month or the 

 fore part of July, a time of the year that on the farm usually there is very 

 little which can be sold to advantage, and when it is very necessary to have 

 means with which to do the haying, harvesting, threshing, and various other 

 kinds of work which are commonly prosecuted during the summer months. 



Other direct sources of profit from sheep are in their increase and from 

 those sold for mutton. Until within a few years the English seemed to have 

 been about the only people who have esteemed this meat very highly, but we 

 have discovered lately that it has been gaining reputation, and is coming rap- 

 idly into more general use on this side of the waters. Statistics show that in the 

 city of New York there was an increase from 1,228,530 sheep slaughtered in 

 1875 to 1,769,598 in 1880, showing an increase of about 44 per cent, which 

 cannot be accounted for alone on the hypothesis of the increase of population. 

 This would prove that for a time at least we should have no fears of over- 

 production in this direction. Presumably one reason for the increasing con- 

 sumption of mutton is that people can partake of it with perfect impunity ; 

 Sheep are no breeders of trichina, neither are there any epidemics or contagi- 

 ous diseases among them that in character resembles the so-called "■ hog 

 cholera" in swine, or pleuro-pueumonia and Texas cattle fever in cattle. 



Another consideration which is no small one in this northern latitude 

 where a farmer needs to feed the generality of farm stock about six months 

 out of the twelve, is the fact that sheep without detriment to them, may be 

 turned to pasture in the spring from two to three weeks earlier and may 

 remain at pasture in the fall about the same length of time later than other 

 farm animals. Taking the two extremes of the pasturing season and putting 

 them together we would have from four to six weeks' less time during the 

 year that sheep would need stored food than other stock, which is an item of 

 no inconsiderable importance. 



