SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR-BOOK— PART VIII. 671 



thousand years. Camparatlvely as this is to be understood this time 

 has come, for in the fact the prophecy has been fulfilled. For it comes 

 to the same thing that we may communicate with another person twenty 

 thousand miles away in a moment, and travel more than a mile a min- 

 ute. In this age we are pushing things, and if a colt is fit for the race 

 course at a year old, and the greater part of the world's business is done 

 by youths under twenty years old, we may very reasonably push things 

 equally in all matters. Thus in conformity with the modern methods, 

 otherwise, we may very properly and safely breed the last year's lambs 

 and so largely increase the product of our fiocks; a full half anyhow. 



The matter has been settled, however, and has passed the stage of dis- 

 cussion. At a year old lambs are now sheep. There are plenty of cows 

 under two years old, and market beeves no older. Any full grown man 

 may now remember when a steer was fed five years before it was 

 thought fit for the butcher, but the farmer who should feed any animal 

 in this way now would quickly find his only refuge in the poor house, 

 or deservedly go to an asylum. 



There is no good reason why last spring lambs may not be bred now. 

 It will increase the stock of sheep, which in fact needs replenishing, if 

 it is true that we are five sheep short out of every hundred we had two 

 years ago. But like the growth in substance, as compared with age, we 

 may very reasonably breed with age, we may very reasonably breed the 

 lambs of last year, and so practically almost double the breeding stock 

 at once. The rest is a mere matter of feeding. 



This is only consistent with the present order of all things. It is one 

 of the fundamental principles of our present economy. We cannot 

 afford to give two year's feeding to a lamb, and then wait another year 

 before it comes into profit. The farmer or feeder of live stock, in fact 

 any business man of whatever kind he might be, will be in a poor house 

 in a few years if he should follow the methods of his father and do 

 things as he did. And it is so with the shepherds. 



But things are as we make them. A few years ago we did not recog- 

 nize at all what was meant when we read that the Creator gave the world 

 to mankind to possess it, and do as he wished to with it. This we are 

 only now learning; and the probability now is, that it is but a matter 

 of time until everything we may wish to do with this world we shall be 

 able to do in time, after a few trials and attempts. And this we 

 feel proper to say to our good friends who wants to know what we think 

 about breeding last spring's lambs. 



Of course circumstances alter cases. We would not breed lambs which 

 have not been properly fed and are under grown; that is, that have not 

 been on the best of pasture since they were weaned and were fed from 

 the day they could eat a little ration of meal and bran, and before that 

 were fed by a ewe whose food all the time was good pasture and a 

 regular ration of mixed meal and bran. We make sheep by feeding. 

 They do not grow on nothing. It used to be the manner to think and 

 act as to them as if they did this. But we know better now, and we all 

 think that lambs will be as we make them, and the way to make them 

 Is by feeding, and if they don't know as yet how this is done, we train 



