The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 199 



we can come to getting a line on it or a parallel case is found 

 in New Zealand. That is too far away to interest you fully, but 

 I want to call your attention to the fact that there is in New 

 Zealand a set of conditions that compares closely with those of 

 the cut-over lands. The soil compares very closely in kind and 

 the climate and rainfall are the same. Through the pressure 

 of circumstances those people residing in that country have 

 taken up the live stock proposition and provided pastures that 

 will support live stock all through the year. Where they have 

 worked that pasture proposition out and studied the live stock 

 business, they have found that their lands were paying dividends 

 on their valuation equivalent to $200 an acre. Only there, that 

 I know of, can you go to find a demonstrated proposition as to 

 sheep raising, that will show you the actual net expense and 

 possible receipts on an acre of pasture ; and you must also con- 

 sider that in building up that system they have been under the 

 handicap of marketing their product five thousand miles away. 



Just to what extent and in what way the sheep proposition 

 can be taken up, I am not ready to state in any detail as yet. It 

 will have to follow the same general lines I have mentioned. 

 First, however, as with cattle, the natural or .artificial pasture is 

 the primary consideration. The sheep differ particularly from Sheep Thrive 

 the cattle in this way, that a good marketable carcass of lamb can Without 

 be raised under pasture conditions without the use of any "^^'" Food 

 material amount of grain. It is possible to produce a useful and 

 salable carcass of lamb without grain at all. Grain is not essen- 

 tial to the production of wool, so that with sheep you can have 

 two finished products from pasture alone. 



Sheep will not thrive under conditions where their feet are 

 continually wet. If it is continually wet or swampy, you will 

 have trouble. They will eat a greater variety of plants than 

 cattle, but if your main object is to clean up brush you can do 

 it with goats and you will have a very satisfactory job. 



Getting down to the possible advantages of sheep in com- 

 parison with cattle on this land, you have to consider that the 

 tick proposition is not serious with sheep. The authorities have 

 stated that the sheep are in no way concerned with tick. While 

 sheep have no ticks, however, they have their own peculiar 

 troubles, which are less serious in some ways and can be avoided. 

 The main factor in the trouble of sheep health is that which con- 

 cerns itself with stomach parasites. There are thoroughly prac- 



