SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VII[. 593 



market, and to illustrate this I will just give you a few facts. At that 

 time I paid two cents a car-load on sheep and lambs, near Barnes City. 

 Three cents a pound was an outside price to pay, and I think the lambs 

 cost me $.75 and I got $4.20 for them. Now, those times are past. At 

 that time four cents was the top price for lambs, while today eight cents 

 is our top. At that time ten and twelve was the top for wool, now twnety- 

 seven to thirty cents is the top and as Mr. Downey says, foreign coun- 

 tries are all short on sheep. Lots of people will ask, why is it sheep are 

 worth more today than they used to be? Why is it it takes more to feed 

 the people, there are more people and more to feed and more to clothe? 

 There is another reason. While there was one person who would eat 

 mutton, I will say , ten years ago, there are nearly three eating mutton 

 today. There are different conditions that give us reason for the advance, 

 and for that reason this advance, will be held. There is nothing in sight 

 to lower the price of mutton or wool. Nothing in an over-production 

 which can come, in my opinion, under five or six years. 



I would say, gentlemen, I have had the care of cattle and hogs and 

 horses until I was twenty-three years old on my father's farm, and we 

 always kept a little bunch of sheep, and since I have been doing for 

 myself I have handled this stock more or less until within the last twelve 

 years, and I know what these men are making. I will say that the sheep, 

 when it comes to dollars and cents, net a profit for the amount of money 

 invested, and the amount of labor used, and the amount of feed consumed. 

 Sheep is king over all other domestic animals for price at the present 

 time. 



Address by G. W. Fr.vnce, before Mahaska County Farmers' Institute. 

 I will give you my reasons why so many fall down in the sheep 

 business. It seems to be a common opinion that sheep will live on noth- 

 ing. We know we have got to feed our hogs if we get anything out of 

 them. We know we have got to feed our cattle; but we neglect our 

 sheep, thinking they can live on anything that is left for them, and that 

 is one reason we fail so often with sheep. It has been suggested here, 

 and I approve of it, that every farmer can raise a few sheep. You cannot 

 afford to get along without them. That is all right. I don't know how 

 you can afford to get along without sheep, but nine out of ten will make 

 a failure to go into the sheep business with that understanding — that they 

 will take care of themselves. And then you are not fixed for them, as 

 a general thing. You have got to have tight fences, and control those 

 sheep, or the first thing they are getting through on your neighbor's lot, 

 and they are getting into your own crops, with poor fences, and you 

 neglect them, and you soon get rid of them. And the greatest known 

 detriment I have found to the sheep is the dog. You cannot raise sheep 

 in the same neighborhood successfully, unless you prepare to protect 

 your sheep, where there are a lot of dogs. Some people would be very 

 much offended for you to kill a dog. You cannot get into a racket any 

 Quicker than to kill a neighbor's dog. That is one of our graetest draw- 

 backs. I never could see the benefit of a dog. I know two men, one of 

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