WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI UIVER. 879 



that seed or chaff will not get into the fleece. If they are properly 

 bred, fed, and sheltered they become veritable mortgage-lifters, improve 

 the fertility of the soil, appearance of the farm, and provide comforts 

 for the household. Sheep are needed to diversify live-stock husbandry 

 and prevent overproduction of other classes of domestic animals. To 

 make a success of sheep-raising civilized methods of management are 

 necessary, and this, of course, requires skill, intelligence, and energy, 

 and the farmer who is not thus endowed will not make a success of 

 the business or prosper in any branch of agriculture. The farmer 

 who makes a success of sheep-raising will prosper where anyone else 

 can. 



SHEEP FEEDING. 



Since 1889 there has developed a new and profitable feature of the 

 sheep industry, which is rapidly becoming quite a business in Kansas 

 and Nebraska, as well as assuming considerable importance in other 

 Western corn-producing States. I refer to the business of feeding, 

 which has been discussed more in detail in the Nebraska report, because 

 that State so far has led in the numbers of sheep fed, although during 

 the winter of 1891-'92 almost as many sheep were fed in Kansas. 



The large packers, like Swift & Co., and others, who have an exten- 

 sive mutton trade, have found it rather difficult to secure enough sheep 

 on the Kansas City and Chicago markets to meet their requirements, 

 so therefore, during recent years have had to send out buyers to visit 

 the sheep-owners of the West and contract for all the mature and fat 

 wethers they could obtain, and such as were not fat enough off grass 

 for slaughter were sent to feeding stations, mainly in Nebraska and 

 Kansas to be grain-fed during the winter. This move on the part of the 

 great packers induced stock-feeders to do likewise, so that during the 

 summer the feeders send out buyers to contract wethers to be delivered 

 in the fall, when they are fed from sixty to ninety days and then for- 

 warded to the markets. 



With the exception of the year 1890-'91, when feed was high, these 

 feeders have made handsome profits, and as a consequence the business 

 has grown in volume and importance because no other class of stock 

 fed realized as good profits as sheep, and the amount of capital required 

 is not so great as that for other stock. Kansas is admirably adapted 

 for winter stock-feeding because of the comparatively mild and dry 

 winters and by reason of her large production of cheap grain and 

 forage. 



The principal sheep-feeding stations in Kansas last season were 

 located at Solomon City, Hope, Eldorado, Hutchinson, Ogden, Wamego, 

 Russell, Abilene, and Lebanon. Small lots were fed at various points 

 in central and western Kansas. 



The total receipts of sheep at the Kansas City stock yards for 1891 

 were 386,760 head. Of this number 206,662 came from Kansas and the 



