WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 765 



Kegarding the operations of "promoters" in South Dakota and its 

 effect on the industry, Mr. M. F. Greeley, of Deuel County, has prepared 

 the. following statement for this report: 



Bringing large flocks of sheep into a new country to let on shares or to aell on 

 time must certainly materiallyaffect in some way the sheep industry. There can 

 be no doubt but that increasing the number of sheep in a country where land is very 

 cheap almost free and peculiarly well adapted to wool and mutton production 

 must help somebody. There are evils connected with this way of stocking up which 

 do not at Hrst appear. 



In the first place, men of inexperience and shiftless habits will rent sheep when 

 they would never think of buying them, and when they fail from inexperience or 

 nonattention to business the industry suffers and other men who, with encourage- 

 ment, would make good and successful shepherds are more or less depressed. Again, 

 when the farmer has but a half interest in a flock he is much less apt, I find, to give 

 them the attention and care he would if he owned them all. And the fact is, that 

 when a large flock of poor sheep have been properly housed and fed twelve months 

 in a northern climate a pretty large hole has been made into half the income, and 

 sometimes with a loss to make up it is all gone. Of course this is discouraging, 

 depressing, and often disastrous. 



Buying on time, I think, is far ahead of "renting" in every way. The man hav- 

 ing all of the income and loss strains every nerve to make the one as large and the 

 other as small as good care and every attention will make them. This is human 

 nature only. If they be good, thrifty young ewes, and acclimated, he can well afford 

 to pay a good price with pretty high interest, and with suitable surroundings and 

 a little experience and common sense is perfectly safe in doing so. I have known 

 more than one man to pay for the flock the first year, and in a feAv cases to have a 

 little money left. 



But there is another side to this. Many of the large flocks brought into Dakota 

 to sell "on time" are the culls of a whole county, or are in poor condition late in the 

 fall, or have been exposed to scab or other disease. This class of sheep could prove 

 nothing but a loss to thoroughgoing sheepmen. But they are very likely to be sold 

 to inexperienced farmers for reasons only too evident. Here again come loss and 

 disappointment, and no end of discouragement to the sheep business. Possibly the 

 men who rent or sell these sheep are all right, but they have employed inexperienced 

 or unprincipled buyers. Again, sheep brought in large flocks are nearly always un- 

 acclimated, and if from the East cause serious trouble, if not loss. 



Of course, some of our most successful farmers rent farms, but as a rule they do not. 

 Good farmers are able and anxious to secure homes of their own. The average 

 farmer who has to rent or buy on longtime is not our most thrifty and farseeing one. 

 There are. of course, many exceptions to this. I know of lots of them. So, in many 

 instances, those who have shipped in the sheep have done well, and the ones who 

 have rented or bought on time have been equally prosperous, and have thus been 

 enabled to start, when without assistance they perhaps never would. I believe the 

 future of the sheep industry in South Dakota would be more promising had nothing 

 of this kind ever been undertaken. 



EXPERIENCE AND OPINIONS OF REPRESENTATIVE SHEEPMEN. 



In making investigations of the sheep industry of South Dakota the 

 writer had considerable correspondence as well as numerous interviews 

 with representative sheep owners, from which the following extracts 

 have been carefully compiled with reference to essential facts bearing 

 on the different phases of the industry in the various sections of the 

 State. These men have acquired some valuable information by experi- 



