SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 527 



stock in part with market ewes has been against our policy, since we 

 desired to have only the few select ones, and no chance of mistaking 

 the ancestry of any lamb. We have no pastures aside from two small 

 woods pastures, one of 14 acres and one of 18 acres, and a horse 

 pasture of about 30 acres. And besides all these reasons there is a 

 psychological one: my brother Charlie is not yet convinced that I am 

 right, and he manages the ewes. You know prophets always have more 

 or less trouble at home, yet I feel it in my bones that I am right, and 

 I have so very much evidence. I have gathered this evidence, some 

 of it with pains and even tears, for many years. I have gathered 

 some of it from experiences of others in other lands. I have done one 

 thing after another, all the things that make the plan I am about to 

 suggest, but not all of them in connection. The trail is all made, it 

 only needs the ends of the zigzags tied together. Who has the faith, 

 the energy, the patience to tie them together, to make a demonstration 

 of how easily and cheaply and safely and profitably sheep may be 

 kept in Ohio, in Ilinois, in Indiana, in Iowa? Any one can keep sheep 

 in northern Michigan, in northern Minnesota, in the Dakotas (though 

 there is trouble coming there, and already come in some places), in 

 the whole region of the arid West. But who can keep sheep on the 

 rich lands of the cornbelt? Who has done it, with large numbers, and 

 without troubles dire and dreadful? I can tell how to do that. Here 

 goes. 



In the beginning was the sheep, happy and healthy and suckling 

 golden lambs, bearing golden fleeces. That was very long ago. Later 

 came the stomach worm, and the two mixed. The result was sorrow 

 for sheep and shepherd. That stomach worm when he came put for' 

 ever behind us the days of the golden era. No more could we keep 

 sheep in a care-free, happy-go-lucky way. Thereafter to keep sheep 

 was a matter of care and trouble and toil, and then sometimes disaster. 

 We did not know the worm, nor how early it was, nor how late. We 

 took it as a mysterious dispensation of Providence when he came and 

 let the lambs sicken and die, or else dosed them half to death and lost 

 all pleasure and profit from them. 



Now we know. We know whence comes the trouble. We know 

 how parasites get from the mother sheep to the lambs. We know that 

 it takes a certain length of time for the germs when dropped upon 

 the grass to develop enough to get to the lambs. That time may roughly 

 be set as ten days. W^e know that the lambs are born free from para- 

 sites. And we know how to free the mothers pretty well from para- 

 sites before the lambs are born for that matter. And I have by dem- 

 onstration on our farm shown the great tonic that comes to 

 sheep from frequent change of pastures. All these things 

 are here; some are new, some are old. Here in a nutshell is the sci- 

 ence of successful sheep farming in the cornbelt. Select as healthy 

 ewes as you can; they will all be infected more or less, very likely. 

 Treat every ewe before she lambs so as to destroy as many para- 

 sites in her as you can. Dr. Ransom is inclined to believe that coal tar 

 creosote, which is much the same thing as the common coaltar dips, 

 diluted with 100 parts of water, is the best thing to give to mature 



