WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 



847 



led in Nebraska will not consume 22 per cent of all the corn raised in 

 the State, or more than $100,000 worth, and perhaps the same number 

 of dollars 7 worth of hay, oats, mill- stuff, and linseed oil cake. What do 

 they give back in re turn "for this $200,000! The average number of 

 pounds put on a sheep during the feeding season is 15, but if we call 

 it 12 pounds, or 66 cents per head, our 500,000 head of sheep pay back 

 in return for the feed given them, $330,000. It is a poor sheep and a 

 poor feeder that can not easily net $1 per head for the sheep he feeds, 

 to say nothing about the increased growth of wool and the valuable 

 manure returned to the soil to fertilize it. 



No other kind of live stock can give so good returns in so short a 

 time on the money invested in them as sheep. In no other State than 

 Nebraska are the risks of loss by disease, dogs, wolves, and other 

 sources so light. 



There are some people who think the business of feeding sheep will 

 be overdone, but in this they are mistaken, because the American peo- 

 ple are just beginning to appreciate and know the value of mutton as 

 human food, and statistics show that the consumption of mutton is 

 increasing faster than our population. One gets a pretty correct idea 

 of the magnitude of the number of fat sheep handled annually by 

 studying the following table or receipts and shipments of sheep at four 

 of the leading commercial distributing points in the West: 



Receipts and shipments of sheep at Western markets. 



The difference between the number of sheep received at Omaha in 

 1890, and the number shipped out shows that the number slaughtered 

 was 63,838. The majority of these were consumed in that city. The 

 records show that Swift & Co., of South Omaha, who do the largest 

 sheep-killing business at that market, slaughtered, in 1890, 34,933 

 head, and that during 1891 they killed 56,646 sheep. Allowing that 

 they kill over one-half of the sheep at that market, it is sale to conclude 

 that in 1891 there was at least 100,000 head of sheep slaughtered at 

 South Omaha, which is about one-fifth of the entire number fed in the 

 State that year. Thus it would seem that four-fifths of the sheep fat- 

 tened in Nebraska are consumed outside of the State, and there is no 

 question but that the best ones are shipped out. It is not the proper 

 way to educate our people to eat more mutton by giving them the poor- 

 est on the market. Notwithstanding this, there is a growing demand 

 for good mutton in all the larger cities and towns of the State, and the 



