276 FARM ANIMALS 



stated that the shrinkage in shipment is practical- 

 ly the same in lambs and old sheep. The ordinary 

 shrinkage for a railroad journey of one thousand 

 five hundred miles is about eight per cent, of the 

 live weight. This may be depended upon as the 

 average, which will be observed in sheep from 

 the age of six months to three years. 



Mutton Production of the United States. An 

 idea of the importance of the sheep business from the 

 standpoint of mutton production may be obtained 

 from the statement that about eighteen million 

 five hundred thousand sheep and lambs are an- 

 nually slaughtered in the United States with an 

 average carcass value of $4.25. The number 

 of sheep slaughtered annually amounts to about 

 thirty-eight per cent, of the total number which 

 are kept on hand. It should not be supposed, 

 however, that variation in the number of sheep in 

 the country depends entirely on the demand for 

 mutton or on the market price obtained for mutton 

 sheep. There are other more important factors 

 in this variation. The most important is naturally 

 the price of wool. Recently, as is generally known 

 wool has been high and the profit derived from the 

 sheep business has been correspondingly great. 



In order to give a definite idea of the relative 

 importance of wool and mutton on the western 

 ranges, where the greater part of our sheep pro- 

 duction takes place, it is only necessary to state 

 that a general tendency prevails toward the de- 

 velopment of a fine-wooled, heavy-fleeced sheep 

 without much regard to the mutton form. Care- 

 ful accounts kept on a large sheep ranch in Mon- 

 tana for the past twenty-five years show that by 

 far the greatest part of the profit in sheep comes 

 from wool. This statement, of course, presup- 



