CATTLE — SHEEP. 61] 



herding range is needed for cultivation, pasture lots will be 

 required. Hedge fences are easily grown (the Osage is best), 

 and the farmer can well afford to take time to fence his fields 

 in this way, accomplishing it with small expense. 



CATTLE. 



Cattle raising is now an important branch of husbandry 

 here. The cost of lierding in Summer does not exceed twenty 

 cents a month per head, and in Winter they live well on 

 prairie hay, which costs one to two dollars per ton, with a 

 small amount of corn. Straw piles and stalk fields are also 

 turned to good account in the Winter feeding. In addition to 

 the stock raised here,^ thousands of animals are brought in each 

 3-ear from tlie South to fatten on our surplus of corn and fod- 

 der. The hogs following these cattle make cheap pork for tho 

 million. 



SHEEP. 



I believe there is no domestic animal that finds a more 

 congenial home here than the sheep, and none that yields so- 

 great a profit to the farmer. The expense of keeping in Sum- 

 mer — pasturage costing nothing, excepting the expense of a 

 herder — is, of course, much less than in the older settled 

 States. The loss from disease is very slight. Six years ago a 

 neighbor bought a flock of one hundred ewes, at two dollars 

 per head, and the following Summer sold from them two hun- 

 dred and twenty-five dollars' worth of wool, and raised one 

 hundred and five lambs. He has thinned out his flock from 

 time to time, by selling off some old or fat ones, and now has 

 nine hundred, worth three dollars per head. Another Nebraska 

 farmer commenced four years ago with a flock of one hundred 

 inferior grades. Each Fall he has sold a sufficient number of 

 fat muttons to meet all the cash expenses he incurred during 

 the entire 3-ear. His sheep have averaged eight pounds of 

 wool at a shearing. They have been herded on land belong- 

 ing to speculators, or railroad companies. His herder has cost 

 him fifteen dollars per month and board. He has always beea 



