96 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



tain to me that, knowing the market and understanding 

 how to pull all the strings, he must have made from 4 to 

 26 dollars a head on each one of them. How I wish I 

 could have heard him when he came to sell them ! Those 

 very steers, so deformed, so spavined, so thin of shank 

 and sharp of back, blossomed out into fully rounded, 

 perfectly formed, top of the market cattle, when pre- 

 sented to the butcher at the shambles ! 



A more striking example was that of the sheep which 

 I disposed of on the same day. The buyer would not 

 buy the sheep outright, but said he would sell them for 

 me on commission. I had to pay for loading them on 

 the cars, and for this purpose had to keep two men a 

 whole day waiting for a car. In addition to that, how- 

 ever, I was charged at the rate of $40 a ton for hay that 

 was fed them in transit. Forty dollars a ton for hay 

 that I would gladly sell at the present market price for 

 $15 a ton, shows just about the difference between the 

 farmer's market when he buys and the farmer's market 

 when he sells. Of the sheep sold, 17 were lambs, for 

 which I got 6 cents a pound; 88 were yearling ewes in 

 fine condition, for which I got $4.50 a hundred pounds; 

 45 were old ewes, for which I got $3.12^/2 a hundred 

 pounds. As a farmer, if I should go to the market and 

 buy the lamb chops, or the legs of mutton, from all ex- 

 cept the 45 old ewes, I would pay from 18 to 30 cents 

 a pound for the meat. These are conditions which are 

 intolerable, and yet which I do not know how to remedy. 

 You can imagine from this recital that sheep growing 

 for mutton purposes is not a very pronounced success. I 

 feel certain that my own experience is that of the great 

 majority of farmers. If the farmer by chance can get 

 in touch with the maker of the goods he buys, he has to 

 pay the local agent a commission. 



