138 THE BEEF BONANZA. 



to a way of wealth, which secured, diversifies our 

 productions, gives scope to national enterprise, sub- 

 sistence and hope to those who would find a homestead 

 on the free lands of the West. At any point two hun- 

 dred miles from Chicago this ratio of freight is well 

 established: That to transport your products to the 

 seaboard, on wheat you pay 80 per cent, of its value; 

 on pork, 30 per cent. ; on beef, 20 per 'cent. ; on wool, 

 4 per cent. This is no conjecture, but my own experi- 

 ence, that I give 80 per cent, of the value of wheat, 

 which impoverishes my farm, to find a market for it, 

 and 4 per cent, to find the best wool-market, the pro- 

 duction of which enriches my acres beyond calculation. 

 National development and expansion are involved in 

 the early clothing of our prairies with bleating flocks. 

 We have room and occupation for hundreds of thou- 

 sands who should go forth from our teeming cities to 

 escape crowded garrets and death-damp of cellars. To 

 the young man who believes 'the behavior of sheep as 

 fascinating under any circumstances/ and finds no room 

 on the old farm in the East, we can say : Here is room, 

 an unclaimed area, larger by thousands of square miles 

 than the land of Midian, from which the Israelites 

 brought forth 750,000 sheep as spoils, — a range of 

 country from Southern Kansas on the south to St. Paul 

 on the north, as varied in climate and production, and 

 better adapted to the wants of the shepherd than the 

 filmed walks of Spain, — varying as the southern plains 

 of Andalusia and the northern snow-clad mountains, 

 on and between which extremes there were depastured 

 with profit several millions of sheep, the progenitors of 



