868 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The author of this report gives the following extracts from letters 

 received from Missouri sheep-owners regarding dogs : 

 E. B. Ekey: 



I have raised sheep all my life, and like the business, except when dogs get at 

 them and kill from 15 to 20 sheep in a single night. If we had a good dog law there 

 would be 10 sheep where now there is 1. 



P. S. Alexander: 



Dogs are the great drawback to the industry. 



Dillon Bros. : 



The future of the sheep industry is dark and getting darker on account of the rapid 

 increase of dogs, and a man dare not shoot one for fear of a lawsuit. Eight flocks 

 have recently been raided by dogs in this vicinity. Some are trying the strychnine 

 cure, and some hundred or more dogs have died in the last two weeks. 



James L. Dawson : 



Sheep-raising is on the decline, owing to the ravages of dogs. 



The foregoing expressions are samples of scores of others similar to 

 them. The public sentiment, based upon common interests, demands 

 the death of every sheep- killing dog, and the passage of a law which 

 will insure future immunity from their depredations. It is next to an 

 impossibility to keep dogs and sheep successfully in the same location. 

 Which must yield ? 



At a low calculation I estimate that the annual losses of sheep in 

 Missouri each year amounts to $200,000 from such depredations, to say 

 nothing of losses in other ways. The loss is not only burdensome to 

 to the owner, but the State is deprived of that amount of taxable 

 wealth. 



EXPERIENCE AND VIEWS OF MISSOURI SHEEP-OWNERS. 



No one fe better qualified to discuss the merits of sheep husbandly 

 from a Missouri standpoint than those who have had years of experience, 

 hence I have collated from a very large and recent correspondence with 

 the sheep-raisers testimony regarding the industry that can not fail to 

 give the reader a clear and comprehensive view of the condition and 

 possibilities of the business in this State from the standpoint of prac- 

 tical and experienced sheepmen. Nearly every portion of the State 

 and almost every phase of the industry is touched upon by the follow- 

 ing correspondence: 



John Morris, Chillicothe, Livingston County: 



I commenced the sheep industry in 1866 with a small flock, and have found them 

 the most profitable of any kind of stock. I now keep from 1,000 to 1,200 head. This 

 is a good State for the business, and with a careful man the future is bright. How- 

 ever, I find that there is only about one man in twenty that is capable of taking caro 

 of sheep. 



Judge E. P. Ayres, Louisiana, Pike County: 



Have been actively engaged in sheep husbandry for the past six years. Began 

 with common native ewes and used a pure-bred Southdown buck for five years. The 

 past year I bred a thoroughbred Oxford Down ram with these Southdown grades. 



