242 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



ing the last slump in sheep values, about 1894, in 

 Texas a rancher started to Chicago with a trainload 

 of sheep. He got drunk in Kansas City and the 

 sheep went on without him, sold, but net for enough 

 to pay the freight. He therefore received a letter 

 from his commission firm asking him to remit for 

 the freight, and they in turn received a telegram 

 from him saying, "I have no money. Am sending 

 on more sheep." 



THE HOPEFUL OUTLOOK. 



The writer believes, however, that the days of 

 ruinous prices for sheep are over. The capacity of 

 our country to consume sheep has grown very enor- 

 mously. The mutton-eating habit, once formed, is 

 retained. Mutton is indeed an economical meat to 

 buy, since in chops one can buy small amounts more 

 easily than in beefsteaks; thus the high price does 

 not so much count. And mutton, especially lamb 

 mutton, is consumed by the well-to-do a steadily 

 increasing class in our country. It is hard to be- 

 lieve that there will ever again be such a Waterloo 

 as the last decade of the Nineteenth Century 

 brought. And yet the writer wishes to prevent his 

 friends from rushing needlessly to buy when prices 

 are the highest, and to caution them from following 

 the example of the Texan and giving their flocks 

 away merely because they are temporarily de- 

 pressed. 



A WORK TO BE DOXE. 



There is a great work remaining to be done on 

 our ranges that is, to build up the quality of the 



