108 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



One of the sheepman's greatest problems is to dispose 

 of his meat, and at present that is practically lost, except 

 what he can save by selling locally or by eating. The ewes 

 are much more valuable as they yield both wool and young, 

 the former paying the expenses and the latter being profit 

 roughly. The wethers can not be made to yield much 

 more than enough to pay for their keep, and then there is 

 no sale for them in the end, as the older they get the less 

 wool they yield. At present the wethers bring less than 

 $2 a head , and are chiefly used to feed the owners and their 

 help. 



With the present transportation facilities it is not pos- 

 sible to ship them anywhere, for the arrivals of the boats 

 are indefinite and when a man drives a herd of sheep into a 

 town he is pretty sure not to find his boat. Then as there 

 is no feed close to the town, they must be driven out again, 

 and meantime the boat may come and go. The only 

 solution seems to be in the way of establishing refrigeration 

 plants in the coast towns; which has not yet been done, 

 though at two points there are canning and rendering plants 

 which take care of the wethers within a hundred miles of 

 the plant. 



Coming back to our hosts, it was planned next day while 

 Shumway and Turner remained to help among the sheep, 

 that Mr. O'Mahoney should ride out with Billy and me to 

 look over the country. Right after a five o'clock breakfast 

 (in this section the Englishmen get up about this hour, 

 prepare themselves cofifee, buns or sweetened bread, and 

 then go out to work, coming in for breakfast about eight; 

 if they do not expect to get in by eight they add cold meat 

 to their coffee and make the best of it) we started ofT toward 

 the coast to look over the exposures there and find a camp 

 where Ameghino had lived and worked some weeks, and 

 presumably had found fossils. The seashore was soon 

 reached and we rode through some of the roughest country 

 imaginable, where the sea had undermined the clifts and 



