FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 403 



our largest lake— in which the whole of it, in fact, might be placed, with 

 ample free sailing room around it— exceeded that we had in all our states 

 and territories; and even now we have only about double the number. And 

 while this is so, at the same time we have to rake over the whole earth to 

 gather in sufficient wool to supply our own factories. In fact, we are only 

 just now beginning to value the sheep at its true worth as a money maker 

 for the farmer, and to accept it at its real value as one of our most agreeable 

 meat foods. But we are gradually improving, although the total number of 

 sheep sold in Chicago in a week averages less than three head per year for 

 each one of the city's population; leaving out the whole region, in every 

 direction, which is tributary in this respect to this market, and there can be 

 no doubt that very soon the production of twice as many sheep as are reared 

 at present will be disposed of , with the wool produced included, without 

 overreaching the demand. 



Virgil said the sheep turned the land it trod upon to gold , and this may be 

 said now with perfect truth, for no other kind of live stock is so profitable to 

 keep, in three different ways, too. It pays a handsome profit- 50 per cent — 

 on its feeding in its own finished condition for market; it makes its own value 

 in its lamb, and returns 50 per cent profit on its keeping in its fleece, for a 

 well-managed flock of good ewes will double itself, and more, every year 

 by its lambs; and lambs come now to market within a year, and bring a 

 better price than full grown sheep do, for the weight of them. But if there 

 was no actual money profit to be made from a flock of sheep there would be 

 an actual gain in the improvement of the land sufficient to make the keeping 

 them desirable. For instance, let me mention a matter of my own expe- 

 rience. I have always kept sheep. I was the owner of a little flock when I 

 was a mere child, and when a man, and up to the present have always had 

 them. Some years ago I had a field lying fallow or used as a pasture, until 

 it was almost wholly covered with a dense growth of blackberries, and the 

 cattle were thus crowded out. I turned in over a hundred sheep early in the 

 summer, when the bushes were in full leaf and blossom. The sheep fed on 

 them with avidity, and before the fall not a green leaf was to be seen, and 

 the stems and branches were half eaten. Everything in the field, except the 

 grass, was killed outright. The field was plowed and put in corn the next 

 year, and made a heavy crop. It brought two crops of corn and a crop of 

 wheat, when it was seeded with timothy and mammoth clover and brought 

 a big crop, so that as the team went along the head of the driver only could 

 be seen above the level of the grass. The grass was mowed for three years 

 successively, and has been in pasture under sheep some years, keeping in 

 fine condition an average of ten sheep, lambs in addition, to the acre. It is 

 now occupied by a tenant, who has been able to pay $10 an acre annual rent 

 for it, and make a good profit in addition. 



But this is only one instance of many which could be given of the profit 

 of keeping sheep as an accessory to ordinary farming and from this source 

 alone. 



