This stimulus has acted so strongly upon sheep raising that 

 no farmer should, or does, think his farm stocked without 

 a flock of sheep ranging from a score or two to several 

 thousand, according to the capacity of the farm or range. 

 And not only has it shown itself in the increased numbers 

 raised, but it has acted in a wonderful manner in improving 

 the stock or character of the sheep. 



But few animals can show a greater diversity of character 

 than sheep. This difference is shown in color, size, shape, 

 length and texture of wool, etc, nor does any animal what- 

 ever occupy a larger territory, living everywhere that man 

 does on the habitable globe. They are found on the bleak 

 mountain sides of Greenland, and on the broad deserts of 

 Africa. Nor does this great diversity cease in these par- 

 ticulars, for no domestic or wild animal is capable of exist- 

 ing on more different sorts of food. Weeds, grasses, shrubs, 

 roots, cereals, leaves, barks, and even, in times of scarcity, 

 fish and meats, all furnish a subsistence to this wonderful 

 animal. They will, in the great pine forests of Norway 

 and Sweden, subsist upon the pungent resinous evergreens 

 through a hard winter, such as are unknown to this latitude. 

 The cultivated grasses of the temperate zones, clover, and 

 the ceerals are, as a matter of course, the best food for them, 

 but in the absence of these they will gnaw the barks and 

 crop the leaves of the forests. Among the Laplanders, 

 when all other kinds of food fail, they will eat the dried 

 fish of those people, or the half rotten flesh of the walrus ; 

 or, in cases of extreme destitution, they will eat the very 

 wool off each other's backs. 



The sizes of sheep are as various as the kinds of food 

 they live upon. In the Orkney Islands they are so small 

 as to appear like toys. Like the diminutive ponies of the 

 Shetlands, neighbors of the Orkneys, they are brought- to 

 the warmer climates as a curiosity. By the side of the 

 massive Cotswold or Southdown they appear very little like 

 the same species. Some have long, tapering, straight horns, 



