402 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



Profit in sheep husbandry means the most generous and 

 judicious feeding and care, carried out in every part of the 

 system. When this is done, so far from sheep being un- 

 profitable upon our higher-priced lands, it is doubtful if 

 any other animal pays so well. In England, it has been 

 said that, on lands worth three to five hundred dollars per 

 acre, fertility can be more profitably kept up with sheep 

 than any other stock. Dairy stock, for instance, carry off 

 much more in the milk alone than sheep in all ways, be- 

 sides taking as much to build the bones and grow their 

 bodies. The waste of phosphates is much more rapid in 

 dairying than sheep husbandry. If, then, sheep may be 

 fed to profit in England on land worth four hundred dollars 

 per acre, we should not be deterred from sheep-feeding on 

 lands worth $50 to $150 per acre. England is considered 

 peculiarly a beef -eating country ; but yet the best mutton 

 brings a higher price than beef. Our large cities and man- 

 ufacturing towns are constantly increasing their demand 

 for good mutton, and this demand is likely to increase as 

 fast as the production. If we should feed as large a num- 

 ber of sheep per hundred acres in the Middle and Eastern 

 States as does Great Britain, the desire for emigration from 

 these States to more fertile lands of the West would soon 

 cease. 



SHEEP FEEDING IN NEW JERSEY. 



New Jersey, lying nearly equally distant between the two 

 largest cities of the country, where populations of over two 

 millions are fed, has accomplished more in feeding for mut- 

 ton than any other State. Yet all feeding stuffs are per- 

 haps higher in this State than any other. The fact, there- 

 fore, that sheep may here be fed at a profit, shows how the 

 same system might be very widely extended to other States 

 in the vicinity, as the cost of feeding and transportation, 

 combined, would be even less. On farms that need reno- 

 vation, sheep feeding is most desirable, because, properly 



