92 SHEEP FARMING. 



Value of first crop, 350 



108 

 Second year : contract for fencing another 100 acres, sowing it 



with wheat, reaping and thrashing, 150 



Wages paid and horse keep for cultivating 100 acres of Indian 



corn, 150 



408 



His 200 acres of corn crop will now yield him from 600/. to 

 700/., thus more than recompensing his outlay, and leaving 

 plenty in hand to pay his first instalment, and to proceed with 

 the vigorous cultivation of the land. The same sum which 

 would be needed to start one son as a farmer of another man's 

 high-rented land in England, would thus start four sons as the 

 owners of farms, fenced, stocked, and under crop, on the fine 

 prairie soils of Illinois. 



I have in a previous letter pointed out the profitable nature 

 of sheep farming in Illinois, and would again refer to it here, 

 as an object well worthy of the consideration of young emigrant 

 farmers. Merino sheep prove very healthy, and can be kept 

 cheaply on the prairie. Their wool is nearly as valuable in 

 America as in England, and the supply is not adequate to the 

 increasing home consumption of that country. A large stock of 

 sheep may be purchased with a small capital. I cannot help 

 thinking, that the safest speculation for an enterprising immi- 

 grant farmer would be, the purchase of a section of land in the 

 midst of untouched prairie, which he would enclose and crop/ 

 for the purpose of wintering a large sheep stock, which he might 

 graze on the open prairie during the summer, at no other cost 

 than that of herding. 



The price of the land is the least consideration that a Brit- 

 ish emigrant need take into his calculations. For if he avails 

 himself of the credit system, he may enter on as much or as 



