246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



briefly, some prices that sheep are selHng for. We get the 

 market reports of sales of sheep in the different large centers, 

 New York, Chicago, Buffalo, and Pittsburg, showing that 

 sheep are selling at certain prices and that that is about what 

 they are worth. I was in Buffalo, in the stockyards, and as I 

 was eating dinner at the hotel, one of the sheep salesmen came 

 in with a broad smile on his face. I asked him what tickled 

 him. Why, he said, that he had just sold his lambs for $8.50. 

 Well, that was enough to make a man laugh. There is some 

 chance to do business with some satisfaction where you can 

 get prices like that. But let me tell you another thing. You 

 never saw any market reports where the price was limited for 

 high class mutton. We are scouring all Europe for an outlet 

 for the products of American farms. There is not a week 

 in the year but fat sheep or lambs are eaten at the club houses 

 in New York City that are bred and fed on farms in Great 

 Britain. But, you say, we are exporting and shipping all the 

 time. Yes, that is true. We are exporting for the European 

 market, exporting there liberally a great many different 

 articles, but on the other hand, we are importing mutton that 

 we ought to raise ourselves, and that kind of reciprocity 

 possibly nets the other fellow the most profit. I know a man 

 who was no better located than a great many of you are, who 

 sold every lamb in his flock at a net price of sixteen dollars 

 each, and those lambs were only a few weeks old. Nearly all 

 of them were twin lambs. I know another man over there that 

 makes a specialty of growing fancy Wethers for hotels, and 

 clubhouses in New York City. I have known him to sell fat 

 Wethers for as high as forty dollars each. Anybody can 

 raise that same kind if he will. Whatever man has done man 

 may do. He has made many sales from twenty-five to forty 

 dollars. What we want is more men who will raise that kind 

 of sheep. We have not got enough of that kind. The flock 

 from which these forty dollar Wethers are bred are pure bred 

 sheep, good sheep, but understand there is no difference, or 

 very little difference in the cost of production of sheep of that 

 grade, or of raising lambs bred in that way over lambs bred 

 from an ordinary flock. The expense is not largely over that 

 from selling sheep from an ordinary bred flock. I can tell you 

 of men that are selling hothouse lambs, and for every lamb 

 they have in the flock are getting not less than ten dollars each, 



