MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 247 



owners are asking from $12.50 to $25 per head for them and 

 while they are debating over the advisability of buying some of 

 them they will fall in with some little one-horse commission man 

 who has a lot of grade bucks, probably about a third cross from 

 the very kind of ewes that the ranchman himself has, for sale at 

 from $8 to $10 per head. This commission man will tell him that 

 the fine bucks he was first thinking of buying will not live on the 

 range, that he will have to keep them up and feed them corn all 

 of the time and that their progeny will inherit the same traits. 

 The ranchman will think this all over, to the detriment of the 

 fine bucks; then, last but not least, is the difference in price, a 

 difference of several dollars per head, and that is the argument 

 that appeals to the native heart the strongest, as he is generally 

 short of money. So he finally buys the grade bucks and takes them 

 home to be used on his flock, in most cases until they are worn out 

 or else trade to a neighbor for others very like themselves. 



The writer has had a limited experience with three breeds in 

 breeding up in New Mexico, viz., Shropshire, Eambouillets and 

 Delaines. 



FINEWOOLS BEST. 



Unless one is breeding lambs to sell as lambs to the feed- 

 ers, or possibly on the open market, we cannot advise the use of 

 Shropshire bucks in New Mexico, although, at the same time, we 

 recognize their worth in other sections of the country. They are 

 a very hardy sheep and will stay fat on the range when even native 

 sheep are getting thin of course we are referring to the cross 

 from Shropshire bucks and native ewes but it is next to impos- 

 sible to hold them in a herd when the feed gets poor, and if a 

 man cannot herd his sheep he cannot stay in the sheep business 

 in New Mexico, for the wild animals will eat them up. 



The other mutton breeds we have had no experience with, 

 but, judging from what we have heard and read of them, they 

 have the same fault as the Shropshire that is, they have not 

 the flocking qualities of the Merino breeds, and during a dry 

 time when feed is scarce it is next to impossible to herd them. 

 Therefore, my friends of the range and those contemplating com- 

 ing to this country, unless you have an excellent range that never 

 gets very dry or unless you intend to raise lambs for market, to 

 market while yet lambs, ewe lambs and all, go slow in introducing 

 mutton blood into a Merino flock. 



DELAINES GOOD FOR NEW MEXICO. 



With the Delaines also our experience has been rather limited, 

 but we have seen enough of them to know that they are an ex- 

 cellent sheep for the ranges of New Mexico. They will put on 



