402 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



"It is often said that it does not pay to raise sheep on high-priced land. 

 If that is true, then it does not pay to raise cattle or hogs on the same land. 

 It costs no more, pound for pound, for one than the other. 



"Fat lambs always find ready sale at good price , and choice lambs are 

 generally scarce at high prices. If lambs are kept till they grow a fleece the 

 price of the wool is generally the profit of the sheep over the fat cow or fat 

 steer. Of course sheep will not fatten on weeds or brush or thrive in cold, 

 wet lots upon neglect. But they will show up in the sales' pens favorably 

 with steers or cows if they are given the same feed and the same care, or 

 even less. 



"Sheep can be fattened in less time than cattle. It is generally found 

 that the steer is not finished in one hundred days, but must be topped off 

 with about two weeks' extra feeding. The sheep can be ready and prime 

 for the market in one hundred days, 



' 'Sheep return more fertility to the soil than any other animal. The cat- 

 tle men on the big western farms are just beginning to find that out, and 

 many of them, particularly in Texas, have sold their cattle and gone into 

 the sheep business. These same men were shooting up the sheepmen on the 

 ranges only a few years ago at that. 



"Sheep are the friends of the small farmer who has none too much 

 money and can not afford to go into cattle. Our people are learning to like 

 mutton because our farmers are learning how to grow and fatten it, and the 

 demand will increase rapidly. There is no doubt that sheep can be raised 

 with profit on any farm where cattle and hogs can be made to pay." 



We do not believe that any regularly conducted live stock farm is too 

 rich for a flock of sheep. It is certainly true that the land with much poor 

 soil can not afford to get along without the flock. On the land whose owner 

 is addicted to the grain-growing habit, caring very little for live stock and 

 their uses, the flock might be profitably maintained where other stock might 

 be out of the question. Their advantage lies principally in the fact that they 

 are easily confined and fed to advantage upon the vegetation that would 

 otherwise go to waste. In the case of the noxious weeds the proportion that 

 were destro^^ed would depend largely upon the number of sheep and the 

 scarcity of better feeding. 



SHEEP ON FARMS. 



Chicago D7'overs' Journal . 



It happens that while the sheep is the most profitable animal a farmer 

 can keep, it may be kept more economically than any other kind of live 

 stock. It may really be subsisted on what would otherwise go to waste. 

 American farmers have not yet learned this fact. But the farmers of Great 

 Britain, including Ireland, have learned and realized it, and have made it 

 such an important part of their farm management that up to within only a 

 few years past the number of sheep kept by them on a territory smaller than 



