64 STATES OF THE RIVER PLATE. 



of breeding-ewes in it. A party who has 15,000 sheep 

 will, therefore, have an increase of 5000 yearly, for 

 which number he has to provide camp each year, or 

 they will die on his hands if not otherwise disposed of. 

 This is a self-evident proposition. 



All sheep or ewes cease to be ' profitable stock ' after 

 they reach a certain age ; after a certain age too, they 

 rapidly die off in inclement weather. The life of a sheep 

 may be set down as eight to nine years (many will live 

 and lamb till ten). The profitable life of an ewe is con- 

 sidered six lambings ; as any subsequent progeny, as a 

 rule, is deficient in all desirable qualities. Infirmities, or 

 bad seasons, will destroy numbers, before they reach that 

 a^e or term of profitable existence. 



The sheep-farmer, therefore, who has a lambing of any 

 given number, say in 1860, will have few of those animals 

 living in 1868 ; consequently, if he has not previously 

 disposed of them, they will have died on his hands. He 

 will probably complain of his annual losses as something 

 extraordinary, whereas they are merely a natural con- 

 sequence of the termination of the 'span of life' of the 

 animals. He will obtain more than a negative advantage 

 by selling (for the vat), and will also avoid this loss. The 

 risk of loss by deaths increases after the fourth lambing, as 

 the ' cold waves ' or the ' hot blasts ' tell with more or less 

 effect on declining vitality. The direct advantages of 

 employing the capital realised by the sale of unproductive 

 stock, in the improvement of the quality and yield of wool 

 of the remainder, will be clear from the following explan- 

 ation : 



A party who has any given number of sheep, sells, say, 

 one-half of his stock, retaining only the ' borregas ' and 

 ewes that have lambed their first, second, and third lambs. 

 Let us assume that the sheep-farmer at the time of taking 



