CHAPTER II. 

 GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF THE FLOCK. 



THE HANDLING OF SHEEP. 



Many flockowners in this country treat their 

 sheep simply as scavengers on their farms, but in 

 England, however, they are handled in an entirely 

 different manner. There the people treat their 

 sheep as they should be treated, for they have had 

 many years of experience in sheep husbandry and 

 have learned to appreciate the value of sheep on 

 the farm far more than do many people in Amer- 

 ica. Some men in this country handle their sheep 

 in a manner that is cruel and really inhuman. The 

 late Prof. John A. Craig, a friend of the writer and 

 well known as one of the foremost authorities on 

 sheep husbandry in America, while once watching 

 sheep shearers at a large plant in the West, was 

 witness to the cruelty of some of the brutal shear- 

 ers toward the sheep. During a short time in their 

 careless and reckless haste they slashed open the 

 bellies of three sheep so badly that their intestines 

 ran out on the shearing floor and the sheep had 

 to be killed in order to relieve them of the terrible 

 pain they were suffering. And yet we speak about 

 humanity! 



(19) 



