92 DOMESTIC ANIMALS. [Chap. I. 



ami hardy and long-legged, wliiuli are valuable qualities for the drover. 

 Their bodies, when well fatted, at two or three years old, will weigh from 

 fifty to sixty-five pounds, and the meat is just fat enough to suit tlie Ameri- 

 can taste. The heavier carcasses of the long-wooled variety are generally 

 too fat, though wo think the taste for fat mutton is an acquired one, like that 

 for fat i)ork. 



But, fat or lean, mutton will always find ready sale in this city at remu- 

 nerating prices. Western farmers should turn their attention more earnestly 

 to the subject of raising sheep, not for wool, but meat for the supply of all 

 tiie Eastern cities. We profess to be tolerably well acquainted with the 

 great prairies of the West, and fully believe that there is no branch of agri- 

 culture so certain to produce sure and profitable returns as that of raising 

 sheep of the kind we have indicated. We know of no other pursuit that 

 the new settlers in Kansas could adopt at all to compare with this. Such a 

 town, for instance, as Lawrence, migiit own a hundred thousand sheep, all 

 of whicli sliould be kept out on the broad prairies in summer, under the care 

 of shepherds and their dogs, to guard them night and day from their greatest 

 enemy, the prairie wolf. In winter they could be provided for on a hundred 

 farms, under cheap shelter, with earth walls and grass roofs. They winter 

 well upon M'ell-cured wild hay, without grain, except for those in hospital, 

 if fed occasionally upon any kind of roots, such as can be grown in great 

 abundance in that soil. In the fall or latter part of summer, select the best 

 animals for market, and start them eastward across Iowa and Illinois, feeding 

 them on cheap grain when the grass fails on the great prairie pasture. 



The raising of cattle must be the business of Kansas settlers, and we 

 believe the best of all will be mutton sheep. The new settlers, too, must for 

 a time make meat their principal diet — in fact, it is the national diet of that 

 region, just as vegetables are in Ciiina. We do not know of a greater act 

 of folly, or a greater humbug, flian inducing people to go to Kansas to 

 practice the peculiar, not to say stupid, doctrine of vegetarianism. 



What the peo2;)le of the West want — what all who grow meat and all who 

 consume it want — is to have the great sea of prairie grass converted into 

 meat — cheap meat. This should be the leading object of all emigrants to 

 the West. The business of grain-growing naturally belongs to a pastoral 

 people, upon old farms, rather than to new settlers. It is a subject to be 

 thought of both by emigrants and old settlers, which is the most profitable, 

 stock or grain, and if stock, which particular kind. 



12i. Sheep in Texas. — There is, or has been, a sort of mania about sheep in 

 Texas. The start made a few years ago by G. W. Kendall, and his success, 

 after going through all the phases of ill luck, losses, and discouragements, 

 which perseverance overcame, has induced many others to establish great 

 sheep-farms in that State. Miijor Wm. Leland, one of the proprietors of 

 the Metropolitan Hotel in this city, is one of the number who has followed 

 the lead of Mr. Kendall, with every prospect of success. There is, besides 

 the fine wool-flocks established in Texas, a constant and large importation 



