18 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



each one a picture of health and thrift; shepherds' 

 neat cottages will shelter an intelligent and thrifty 

 class of farm laborers, great piles of manure will be 

 accumulated in winter time to replenish the old 

 fields, the farm boys will find enough to do and suffi- 

 cient encouragement for doing it and will remain on 

 the farms, and then agriculture will be truly an up- 

 building, a creation of fertility and farms where now 

 there is little of profit left to country dwellers. 



Let no one imagine-, however, that these blessings 

 follow the mere fact of buying a flock and placing it 

 upon the farm. ' l Sheep are ever an unhappy flock, ' ' 

 remarked an old Eoman agriculturist, and in no oth- 

 er stock can the ignorant or heedless farmer have so 

 great a variety of misfortunes as with the sheep. 

 Few of these troubles are unavoidable. It is to point 

 the way to success and to indicate the rough places 

 that this little book is written. 



It is to be regretted that a great change has come 

 over country life. The old intimacy between the 

 farmer and his men, the farmer and his fields, the 

 farmer and his animals, has to an extent gone, per- 

 haps forever. Nevertheless, the farmer who under- 

 takes to keep sheep with profit must go back to the 

 ways of his fathers and his boyhood, he must culti- 

 vate an acquaintance with the individuals in his 

 flock, must learn to know instantly by sight whether 

 or no they are in health, must have their confidence 

 so that he can without much trouble catch them 

 afield, by aid of the shepherd's crook or a bit of salt 

 or a handful of shelled corn. Fortunately this inti- 



