PROFITS OF WOOL PRODUCTION". 



value of which is therefore about 90 per year, or 4s. 6d. per 

 sheep. * * Three hundred sheep have in this manner 

 (with ' a standing fold on some dry and convenient spot, well 

 littered with straw or stubble,') produced eighty large cart- 

 loads of dung between October and March, and in this 

 manner, after the expenses have been deducted, each sheep 

 has earned 3d. per week." 



A hundred Merino sheep, given abundance of bedding, 

 will, between December 1st and May 1st, make at least forty 

 two -horse loads of manure and if fed roots, considerably 

 more. I scarcely need to say that both the summer and 

 winter manure of the sheep is far more valuable than that 

 of the horse or cow.* Its manure on high-priced land which 

 requires fertilizers, cannot be estimated at less than 50 cents 

 per head per annum, and I should be inclined to put it 

 still higher. 



The value of the lambs and manure is the minimum of 

 profit. That profit increases just as the market value of land 

 and the cost of keeping decreases. On the rich plains of 

 the West and South-west, manure is not yet reckoned among 

 the appreciable profits, and the cost of transporting wool to 

 market is from one to two cents per pound. The Western 

 grower, then, gets the lamb and about half the fleece, as the 

 profit on each sheep. The Texan grower gets the lamb and 

 about three-quarters of the fleece, and so on. I do not 

 deduct the extra prices paid from time to time for rams, 

 because each good one vastly more than pays for himself in 

 increasing the value of the flock. 



The prices of lambs of different blood and in different 

 places, vary too much to admit of even an approximately 

 uniform rate of estimating them. But it does not anywhere 

 cost more to raise a full - blood than a grade Merino lamb. 



* Horses are not used as depasturing animals in any of the older States. The 

 following remarks appeared in my Report on Fine-Wool Husbandry, 1862 : " If milch 

 cows are not returned to their pastures at niirht in summer, or the manure made in the 

 night is not returned to the pastures, the difference in the two animals in the particular 

 named in the text, is still greater. Even grazing cattle kept constantly in the pastures, 

 and whose manure is much better than that of dairy cows, are still greatly inferior to 

 the sheep in enriching land. The manure of sheep is stronger, better distributed, and 

 distributed in a way that admits of little loss. The small round pellets soon work 

 down among the roots of the grass, and are in a great measure protected from sun and 

 wind. Each pellet has a coat of mucus which still further protects it. On taking one 

 of these out of the grass, it will be found the moisture is gradually dissolving it on the 

 lower side, directly among the roots, while the upper coated surface remains entire. 

 Finally, if there are hill tops, dry knolls, or elevations of any kind in the pasture, the 

 sheep almost invariably lie on them nights, thus depositing an extra portion of manure 

 on the lenst fertile part of the land, and where the wash of it will be less wasted. The 

 manure of the milch cow, apart from its intrinsic inferiority, is deposited in masses 

 which give up their best contents to the atmosphere before they are dry enough to be 

 beaten to pieces and distributed over the soil." 



