168 THE SHEPHERD'S MANUAL. 



"While some of this very great increase will result from the rapid 

 improvement in the character of the sheep, yet there is neverthe- 

 less reason to suppose that the number of sheep in California now 

 reaches at least 5,000,000, which is nearly double the number of 

 1870. 



In Colorado, persons engaged in the sheep industry, estimate 

 the flocks to amount to about one million ; and in the neigh- 

 boring territories of Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizo- 

 na, this industry has become so wonderfully developed during the 

 past five years, that a reasonable estimate would give the whole 

 present number of sheep pasturing upon those plains as at least 

 2,000,000, where in 1870 there were little more than 120,000. The 

 profitable character of the business of rearing sheep upon these 

 magnificent and costless pastures, is tending to still further attract 

 the attention of stock men and capitalists, who are establishing 

 flocks in almost every available portion of these territories. A 

 business in which capital used with care and skill returns a profit 

 of 75 per cent, cannot fail to become developed with rapidity in 

 so favorable a locality. What the limit of the productive capacity 

 of these broad pastures may be, it would be hazardous to attempt 

 to prognosticate. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE ANATOMY OF THE SHEEP; ITS DISEASES 

 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 



GENERAL VIEW OF ITS ANATOMY. 



The structure of the sheep more nearly resembles that of the 

 ox than any other of the domestic animals. It possesses a less 

 degree of nervous energy than the horse, ox, .or pig, but it is capa- 

 ble of enduring greater extremes of heat and cold with less incon- 

 venience, and possesses a more vigorous digestion than those ani- 

 mals. The most of its nervous energy is expended on its diges- 

 tive and assimilative functions, and the least proportion upon its 

 sensitive and locomotive organs. None of our domestic animals 

 so completely digests coarse fodder, or so thoroughly and profita- 

 bly turns the most nutritious food into flesh and fat as the sheep. 



