EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 579 



have fostered this branch of sheep husbandry. Many of the fanners 

 engaged in this business do not raise the sheep thus handled upon their 

 own farms. They are picked up on farms 20 to 40 miles from home, 

 sometimes from outside of the State and beyond the Mississippi. Three- 

 year-old wethers are preferred for this purpose, as they have attained 

 about the proper size and age to fatten advantageously. The general 

 run must weigh over 100 pounds, and medium wools are preferred, as 

 the farmer must depend for his profit on both the mutton and wool. 

 Many farmers buy from 50 to 200 annually, fatten them through the 

 winter on their surplus hay and grain, and turn them off in the spring 

 at a good profit. 



Not only do the farmers expect and generally realize a good profit on 

 the sheep by using their hay and grain without the expense and trouble 

 of finding a market for these crops, but they thus convert them upon 

 their farms into large quantities of superior manure, which has a cash 

 value to them in restoring to their lands the fertility that has been lost 

 by years of continuous cropping. And experience has shown that the 

 farmers pursuing this course get as good prices for their corn as if it 

 were fed to hogs. Eaising early lambs for the city markets receives 

 much attention from those situated near cities or on roads running to 

 them. For this purpose common or Merino grade ewes are purchased 

 in the late summer or early fall, put with a Southdown or Shropshire ram, 

 the lambs sold at from $3 to $5, and the ewes fattened on pasturage 

 and sold off later. This system follows that pursued in New Jersey and 

 other parts of the East. But the preferable course of the Indiana 

 farmer is a combination of wool and mutton. In order to gain the 

 greatest, and we might say the requisite, amount of profit, he must 

 raise a sheep combining a growth of wool with a growth of mutton; 

 one that will net him the most pounds of marketable mutton, and a 

 good grade of wool. The wool should pay for the keeping, and the 

 lambs pay a good interest on the money invested. He can go into the 

 market in the fall with $100 and buy 20 common ewes for $75, and a 

 ram for $25 of some of the mutton breeds. These bred all winter with 

 good care will give him 20 lambs, which, at the end of a year from the 

 time he started, can be sold at $3.50 to $4.50 per head. At the lower 

 price, or $70 for 20 lambs, there will be realized a return of 70 per cent 

 on the original investment, and the flock is left. The wool, even at its 

 lowest price, can be counted on to pay the cost of keeping. But if the 

 sheep are raised alone for mutton there must be deducted from the sale 

 of lambs at least $30 for expense, leaving only $40, or 40 per cent on 

 the investment. This combination of wool and mutton most of the 

 Indiana farmers believe they have found in the Shropshire sheep, and 

 it is the belief in that combination that makes the sheep so popular in 

 the State, where they are increasing with a rapidity that threatens to 

 drive out all other sheep. Their mutton is considered nearly as good 

 as that of the Southdown, while their wool is much larger and nearly 



