664 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



who is really breeding his sheep, and who takes ordinary pride in the 

 quality of his flock, is already making his plans for the ram part of 

 his sheep for the coming season. 



Whether you may own only a small flock, or whether you count 

 your sheep by the thousands, this subject of the ram is of equal import- 

 ance. Here is the very foundation of your breeding, the real start of 

 the lamb you expect to produce. For while like begets like, to a cer- 

 tain extent, yet there are certain characteristics which the sire impresses 

 more strongly upon his produce than does the dam, and it is vitally 

 important that these characteristics be the right ones, and that the 

 sire be so bred as to assure the owner of a reasonable power of trans- 

 mitting them. 



Above all things, whatever breed you use, whatever the object in 

 view in your breeding, use a pure-bred ram. 



If you are breeding with a view of selling all your lambs at flve to 

 eight months old, and calculate to buy your ewes as you need them, 

 you will find that you cannot afford to use anything but a pure-bred 

 ram. Too many follow some such false reasoning as this: We are going 

 to sell all our lambs. We don't care what kind of a ram we use; it 

 don't matter whether we use a pure-bred or a scrub, it's all the same, 

 and a grade we can buy so much cheaper. And this last is the real 

 keynote of their whole argument, which is really as palpable a case 

 of false economy, of a shining example of "penny wise and pound fool- 

 ish," as can be found. 



Did ever any man see as good produce from a scrub sire of any 

 kind — sheep, cattle or anything else — as that from a pure-bred, other 

 things being equal? If he has, it w^as so exceptional and so unheard 

 of that it only furnished ample proof of the contrary. But to the 

 question of dollars and cents — for that, after all, is to what all this is 

 reduced in simple equation — and all reason and experience shows that 

 the pure-bred is the most profitable and cheapest ram for the sheep- 

 owner to use. He costs a few dollars more when you buy him, to be 

 sure, but his lambs will be enough superior to those of the scrub or 

 grade in general quality and uniformity, in weight and fleece, that the 

 difference in the value of the lambs of the pure-bred and those of the 

 scrub in favor of the former will actually more than pay the entire 

 cost of the ram. 



"Oh, yes, that's all right," says Mr. Scrub (for the sheep are generally 

 a reflection of their owner), "but my sheep bring just as much as the 

 other fellow's." Is that so? Perhaps; but we have noticed that the top 

 sales, that the winners at the fat-stock shows, whether individuals or car 

 lots, were all invariably bred from pure-bred rams. Again, the largest 

 and most successful sheep raisers on the range and the farm use pure- 

 bred rams, and their sheep top the market as sure as they ship. If such 

 extensive and experienced raisers find pure-bred rams the most profitable, 

 how can any sheep owner afford to use anything but a pure-bred ram? 



And how much more important is it for the raiser who plans to breed 

 his own ewes, and thus maintain his flock with the increase! The 

 increased value of the ewe lambs alone from a pure-bred ram over that 



