1000 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



Michigan and Wisconsin fleece, long holding the second rank, is 

 now pressing for admission to the first. 



In the sub-montane district under consideration wool- 

 holds precedence over mutton. Hay, principally timothy, some 

 clover, red-top, blue-grass, with corn, oats, and bran constitute 

 the staple feed. Some careful flock-masters grow turnips and 

 fodder-corn for breeding ewes, but a vast majority depend on 

 bran and clover-hay for a laxative. Corn-fodder is given out 

 far less than in the West. Shelled corn is the principal grain- 

 feed for fattening wethers, while the favorite ration for lambs 

 and tegs is corn, oats, and bran, mixed in about equal propor- 

 tions. The bulk of the wethers are shorn unwashed in March, 

 April, and May, sold at four dollars and twenty-five cents to 

 three dollars and fifty cents a hundred, and shipped East. Many 

 young ewes are sent West to found new flocks ; oldish ones to 

 the East, for the use above mentioned. The flocks are washed 

 the latter part of May, shorn about two weeks later, and the 

 wool sold to agents, who generally receive a cent a pound 

 commission. 



The prairie section of the Mississippi Valley may be 

 held roughly to include Kentucky, the home of the famous Im- 

 proved Kentucky. Here the English long-wools are gaining 

 a strong and permanent foothold, though there are many fine 

 flocks of Merinos in Northern Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin. 

 Sheep are here housed far less than in the Ohio Valley, not only 

 because of the scarcity of building material, but because wool 

 is less sought after. Corn is often given to flocks in the ear, 

 and on the ground in a wasteful manner ; they are sometimes 

 fed with the corn unhusked ; and even in the fall or early win- 

 ter turned into the standing grain. They are frequently win- 

 tered in the same inclosures with cattle. In hard winters thou- 

 sands of sheep are driven East from the plains to the cheap 

 corn-fields of Kansas and Missouri, to return in the spring. In 

 Minnesota sheep winter well on clover-hay alone ; when there 

 is none of that they receive grain. In Nebraska the maximum 

 cost of keeping a sheep a year is placed at one dollar, from that 

 down to sixty-five cents. Twelve tons of prairie hay, worth 



