SHEEP UNDER FARM CONDITIONS 169 



of headed grain which fell down or lodged before 

 harvest and was not gathered by the reaper. All 

 of this the sheep will pick up and transform into 

 mutton and wool, and several weeks' good feed 

 which would otherwise be lost may be obtained 

 every year from the cut-over grain fields. Fre- 

 quently the corn fields can be pastured in the early 

 autumn, and enormous quantities of the lower 

 leaves will be eaten by the sheep without any in- 

 jury to the ears of the corn. Not only will large 

 quantities of other waste feed be utilized in this 

 manner, but a constant improvement of the land 

 will result. The old saying that " the sheep has a 

 golden hoof " is well borne out by the experience of 

 men who keep large numbers of sheep, in the con- 

 stant building-up of the fertility of their soils. 



SHEEP ON VALUABLE LAND 



While it is true that sheep are well adapted to 

 grazing on semi-arid land and to utilizing waste 

 feed and the vegetation on land which cannot 

 be profitably managed in any other way, it should 

 not be inferred that they have no place on the 

 rich, high-priced farming land. An erroneous idea 

 has often prevailed that sheep are profitable only 

 on inferior land which is suited to nothing else. 

 This could hardly be farther from the truth. The 

 rich agricultural lands of England sustain an aver- 

 age of 680 sheep to every 1,000 acres, while some 

 of the best land in Scotland has supported at times 

 as high as 1,380 sheep per 1,000 acres. The best 

 agricultural states of America do not support an 

 average of more than 25 sheep to every 1,000 acres. 

 Careful breeding and intelligent management of 

 sheep will return greater profits to the owner of 



