Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 407 



out of the market" about the time these lambs were ready to be 

 sold. 



Many of those who were caught in the fall are still raging 

 against the sheep business, yet if they lose a corn crop they don't 

 stop growing corn. But with all the uncertainty of the market, a 

 flock of breeding ewes will nearly always pay good interest. Dur- 

 ing the last two years western ewes have been cheap and plentiful 

 on the market, four dollars buying a good class of ewes. Cross 

 these ewes with a good mutton ram, and by July 1st the lambs 

 will bring as much as the ewes cost. The ewe's fleece will pay for 

 her keep. 



At the Experiment Station, Colorado western ewes that were 

 bought on the Kansas City market, cost $3.60 per head laid down, at 

 Columbia. Lambs from these ewes brought $4.05 on the St. Louis 

 market on July 8th. The ewes' fleeces brought on the average 

 $1.33, which would pay for their feed. 



Marketing the lambs in June or early July is in nearly every 

 case the advisable thing to do. First, because the lambs will make 

 little, if any, gain from July 1st to September 1st. From records 

 kept here we find the lambs more often lose than, gain in weight 

 during the hot summer weather. Second, this system avoids the 

 risk and trouble of stomach worms. Third, these lambs do not have 

 to compete with the western lambs on the market, as they do not 

 begin to come in until later; and with only native lambs on the 

 market at this season of the year, a higher market usually pre- 

 vails. 



The idea of having ten or a dozen sheep around the farm to 

 act as scavengers never has nor never will do the sheep industry 

 any good. Not because sheep will not clean out the fence rows, and 

 utilize odds and ends of waste pasture, but because the number of 

 sheep and amount of money invested is too small for the average 

 farmer to pay enough attention to them. 



POINTS IN SHEEP FEEDING. 



(Chester G. Starr, Centralia, Mo.) 



Each succeeding year sees more farmers venturing into the 

 sheep-feeding business as a means of converting their corn, oats, 

 hay, grass or silage into some form of meat and as a means of re- 

 taining the fertility of their farms. The high prices demanded in 



