BARNS AND STABLES. 213 



seen. A farmer has bought them to take back to the coun- 

 try. I pity him his experience of the next year or two. 



Here is another pen of natives, and what queer sheep 

 they are! Long in the leg, thin in the fleece, thin in the 

 chest, with pendulous bellies, like Indian famine sufferers; 

 it is a mystery to us that such sheep should exist in America 

 and good rams so cheap. There is a vast difference in the 

 quality of the westerns. Some one-half Cotswolds from 

 Utah tempt us, but Swift wants them and we let him have 

 them. 



Monday morning sees a big "run" of 25,000 head in the 

 pens, and for once the feeder has a chance after the killers 

 have supplied themselves. We fall in love with some one- 

 half and three-quarter blood Shrops from Wyoming and the 

 salesman makes a quarter concession to us and soon 600 

 lambs are rolling toward Woodland Farm feed yards. We 

 have paid a long price, to be sure, but they are only 56 Ibs., 

 and are all so even, so healthy and so free from "tail" that 

 we view them again and again with delight. We have 

 never had such feeders, aoid visions of fat 100 pounders next 

 March appear to us. First to the dipping vat they must go, 

 and the 600 go through it in less than an hour. There is no 

 scab on them and we feel very sure there will never be 

 any now, and shall not dip again. The charge is but 3c. 

 each and we are grateful to Secretary Wilson for having 

 made this dipping compulsory and thus feasible. 



Homeward we rumble across Illinois prairies and Indiana 

 fields, burned to a crisp by the long drouth, the yellow corn 

 standing in great fields on either hand. Riding much on the 

 car roofs we study the farms on either side. Few sheep 

 are seen; none that would indicate even an- attempt at 

 systematic sheep husbandry. We think long of the future 

 and what it has in store for us. Are we to learn how to 

 keep sheep in this central country, or are w r e to continue to 

 lease it to the western brothers? Is it a safe business to 

 buy feeders in Chicago and compete with killers to rum 

 prices up up? 



A method followed on one of the Large Texan Ranches is 

 here shown. A and B >are two large lots into which the sheep 

 are gathered for dipping, marking or sorting. A round, cen- 

 tral pen (C) into which the sheep may be driven from either 



