THE SHROPSHIRE 563 



200 guineas ($1000)." Mr. Alfred Mansell, long -a prominent 

 auctioneer of Shropshires abroad, has published quite a record of 

 Shropshire sale prices. A list of 464 rams ranged in average 

 selling price at auction from slightly above $100 per head to over 

 $200, while 1700 ewes sold at prices ranging from $20 to over 

 $50 per head. A list of 5 3, rams is also given by name, which 

 have either sold or been hired for from $305 up to $1250 each, 

 9 of which came within the $1000 list. In 1893 W. Bowen- 

 Jones of England sold a ram at auction for $1000 to Thomas and 

 Son. In 1896 Mr. Mansell wrote: " Foreign and colonial flock- 

 masters have been good customers, and at high prices, running 

 up to 200 guineas for rams, 30 guineas for ram lambs, 40 pounds for 

 ewes, and 15 guineas for ewe lambs." In 1910 Thomas Minton 

 of Montford, Shrewsbury, a most noted constructive English 

 breeder, sold the two-year-old ram Montford Trader at auction for 

 $1125, the record price up to that date. It is interesting to note 

 that the Minton flock, owing to the death of Mr. Minton, was 

 dispersed at auction, September 19, 1917, when 391 head aver- 

 aged $$o each, 39 rams averaged $85, and 90 stock ewes about 

 $45 each. In the United States values as a rule have been con- 

 servative. The champion ram of the breed at the 1909 Inter- 

 national Live-Stock Exposition, exhibited by Elmendorf Farm of 

 Kentucky, was sold for $500 to D. V. Perrine of Idaho. In 1916 

 T. F. Jones of Iowa paid George McKerrow of Wisconsin $500 

 for a half interest in the ram Senator Bibby. On January 14, 1919, 

 A. T. Jones and Sons of Iowa broke American Shropshire price 

 records in the dispersal sale of their herd, 142 head (of which 137 

 were ewes) bringing $17,475. One ram brought $550 and one 

 ewe $500. Twenty daughters of the ram Senator Bibby brought 

 an average of $171 per head. 



The distribution of the Shropshire is world-wide ; no other 

 mutton breed has approached it in universal popularity. From 

 England these sheep have been exported to many different coun- 

 tries. In 1907, according to Alfred Mansell, 1 secretary of the 

 English Shropshire Society, 1427 Shropshires were exported to 

 the United States, Canada, and Newfoundland ; 569 to South 

 America, including Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru ; 



1 Live Stock Jouinal Almanac, London, 1917. 



