THE SHEEP COMES BACK 



Scarcity of Wool and Mutton, Due to Breaking Up of Open Ranges, May be 

 Remedied by Re-introduction of Sheep into Mixed Farming — Remark- 

 able Demand for Breeding Stock in the United States at 

 Present— Fine-wool Breeds Not Suitable for the Farm. 



THAT demand always creates sup- 

 ply is an economic maxim which 

 gets very little support from 

 sheep breeders. Each year mut- 

 ton and wool grow scarcer, each year 

 buyers are willing to pay a higher price 

 for them, and each year the ranchers 

 raise fewer sheep. 



The explanation of this expensive 

 state of affairs must be sought in the 

 world-wide march of civilization. Sheep 

 have always been produced in regions 

 where there was a large area of waste, 

 unfenced land. They have been an 

 accompaniment of the frontier. But 

 the frontier, everywhere, is disappear- 

 ing. Range land is being cut up for 

 farms. Of the four great sheep coun- 

 tries, Australasia, South America, the 

 United States and South Africa, the 

 latter alone is increasing its sheep range. 

 Broadly speaking, the day of the range 

 sheep is passing. It is, then, an inter- 

 national movement which makes the 

 housewife pay more for smaller lamb- 

 chops, and forces the business man to 

 invest $40 in what was formerl}^ a $30 

 suit of worsted. 



Where is this movement to stop!" 

 Will the diner, neatly clad in cotton 

 and wood-fibre, eat his mint sauce on 

 baked beans instead of spring lamb? 

 Probably not, for the law of supply and 

 demand is "coming to," and bringing 

 out a new type of sheep husbandry. 



In most countries, sheep have hither- 

 to been grown for wool, with meat as a 

 by-product. The breeds in demand 

 were the fine-wool breeds, evolved by 

 the Spaniards from an oriental stock. 

 These sheep, taken to Mexico from 

 Spain, w^ere secured from Mexico by 

 the western United States, and formed 

 the foundation of the American sheep 



industry. They cannot be expected, 

 from now on, to be as profitable as 

 "dual ptn'pose" sheep will be. 



The breed of the future is a breed 

 which combines meat production and 

 wool production in due degree, and 

 which can be raised on the farm as a 

 feature of mixed farming. The Down 

 breeds of England meet this need for 

 the eastern United States; in the West 

 a new breed may have to be created, 

 if it has not been supplied by the 

 hybridizers of New Zealand, in the 

 Corriedale.^ 



SHEEP ON THE FARM 



In Great Britain large numbers of 

 sheep are raised on waste land, which is 

 too rocky or unproductive to be plowed. 

 In the United States such land is 

 allowed to lie idle, overgrown with 

 brush, or is perhaps used as pasture 

 for other animals which are able to 

 derive little nourishment from it, not 

 being close-croppers like the sheep, nor 

 able to assimilate so much roughage. 

 The American farmer must be depended 

 on to build up the industry which the 

 x'\merican rancher is allowing (willy 

 nilly) to decline. And the American 

 farmer is coming to realize this — com- 

 ing so rapidly that he has forced the 

 price of breeding ewes up 300% in half 

 a dozen years. 



Last year a new homestead act was 

 passed by Congress which will permit 

 applicants in the sheep country to file 

 on 640 acres for. grazing purposes. 

 Obviously this means that many of the 

 large ranges will be cut up, and their 

 great flocks of sheep driven out of 

 existence. It was freely predicted that 

 the price of mutton would fall to the 

 ground when the sheepmen began to 



1916. 



1 See Marshall, F. R. Corriedale Sheep. Jovrnal of Heredity, vii, pp. 88-95, February, 



387 



