126 THE BEEF BONANZA. 



of sheep will do well here, but for various reasons I 

 would advise the introduction of the best qualities of 

 mutton-sheep in preference to the fine-wooled animals. 

 In the first place, they are hardier and more prolific, 

 and will undoubtedly improve faster; in the second 

 place, while it is possible to overstock the market with 

 wool by importation from foreign countries, it is not 

 possible to overstock the meat market. We have now 

 47,000,000 of people, and the annual increase is about 

 3,000,000 ; our people are all meat eaters; the price 

 of meat in our large cities is enormously high, and the 

 annual production by no means keeps pace with the 

 demand for consumption. But, in addition to all this, 

 the actual return in wool from a flock of medium- 

 wooled sheep will nearly equal in value the net product 

 of a fine-wooled flock. They produce heavier fleeces, 

 and the price of the wool bears a better ratio to its cost. 

 Most of our flock-masters are purchasing the sheep- 

 flocks of New Mexico and the extreme Western States, 

 with the expectation of getting good animals by cross- 

 ing. This may be done, it is true, but I do not think 

 it likely to result satisfactorily. It requires too much 

 care and judicious selection, as well as long-continued 

 effort, to get rid of bad qualities and fix permanently 

 good ones. We can get sheep, by going farther East, 

 which have been carefully improved for fifty years, and 

 in which the characteristics have been developed by 

 a scientific breeding which we may not hope to equal. 

 Such a flock will cost more to start with, and will be 

 worth more, but may not have cost more, all things 

 considered, after a few years." 



