You LXXVI. NEW YORK, JUNE 9, 1917. No. 4483. 
Plain Talks About Sheep 
And More About Wool 
OST OF EWES.—I have a letter from a reader 
■wanting to know if it will bo safe to buy sheep 
at the prices he must pay now. The Philadelphia 
Wool and Textile Association, which knows the 
status of the industry in this country and of the 
world, the needs for the present, and pro.spects for 
the future, has contracted for 10,000 yearling ewes 
on the range, at $12.50 per head, for sale to l*eun- 
.sylvania farmex’s. Counting long freight, feed, loss, 
and distribution they must get much above that, and 
from what we have seen of the “higher-ups” in the 
wool industry, it must be safe for the man with no 
sheet), the one who will cai'e for them, to get some 
ewes if he can pick tlxeni ui) anywhere. 
BUYING CULLS.—I also have a hurry call ask¬ 
ing if it will pay to buy cull ewes from a good 
breeder. I believe it will be safe to buy any kind 
of ewes, if they ai’c cared for. Notice I have used 
that wmi’d “care” twdce, and then 1 ask you if you 
have ever noticed that when a man neglects an 
animal he never cares for it. Also, that when we 
are kind to an animal or i)erson, we cai’e for them. 
This holds good in every association, and it is 
easier to look after the wants (care for it) of a 
sheep and love (care for) it than any animal oix the 
place. But to the question, if I wei’o starting in 
sheep I woxild go to a breeder and ti’y to bu.v his 
“tail end” ewes. They are worth more than coni- 
mon good sheep without breeding, and will I)e almost 
as good as his. except the use will be shortei'. 
A DEARTH OF WOOL.—It has cost a probable 
million to junket, investigate, subpoena and survey 
the cost of food prices, and I could have told the 
authorities gratis that it was underproduction. 
Volumes were wiatten on the subject and consumers 
wei’e blaming and vilifying the fainner. When we 
started on National missionary work, to help down 
the “divine right of kings,” it suddenly dawned that 
this was the reason, and wool is the scarcest of any¬ 
thing. There are mills of every calibre calling for 
wheat in every town and city, with little combina¬ 
tion for wheat, and look at its price. Wool is man¬ 
ufactured by a few who understand each other per¬ 
fectly, or it would be the highest ever seen, and 
meats also are scant. We have a few sheep, and 
are now encouraging the industry, and you may 
think it poor business to “give it away,” but there 
will be no plethora while we live. Thei'e has been 
a scai’city. Every rag has been worked over until 
the fourth time, and when it was so short, and the 
scales, the barbs, all worn off it went into your $5 
wool hat. Then note the desti’uction of all animals, 
and the need of them for food on the other side, 
and the number of suits the armies have needed, at 
three each annually, and the scarcity of junkmen 
after a battle, and you can see I run no risk while 
I live. Also, count along with this the amount our 
prospective soldiers must have and you would better 
buy your Winter suits now. 
THE BEST TIME TO BUY SHEEP.—When I 
was a boy I ci’ossed the present turbulent waters to 
see my grandfather near Cookstown, 1 Iceland. He 
said to me one day, “William, when is the best time 
to cut a blackthorn stick?” I gave him some in¬ 
formation about the flow of sap, and told him the 
Fall was the best, but he told me I was wrong. 1 
asked him when he thought was the l)est time and he 
said. “When you see it. If you don’t some other 
fellow will cut it.’’ The easiest time to buy sheep 
is just after shearing. Men who are .going to change, 
or cull, want the wool first, and thei’e are fat ones 
then, and some can be picked up I'easonable. Some 
personal experience may help answei*. Before I had 
a boy of my own to see to things, I picked up many, 
sorted them and fixed them for the pi'oper parties?. 
When each bunch came, it went into a shed, and did 
not get into a fleld until it was shaped up with the 
sheans, so its body could be clean, and its feet 
ti’immed, sometimes doctox’ed for “foul” or foot-rot. 
Forloim fellows wei*e put by themselves so they 
would not have to drag their weary bodies after the 
flock, and one Summer of care brought happiness to 
them. I had abundant chances to see how sheep 
went bad when men did not cai’e for them, men who 
took cai’e of other stock, who kept their hogs in 
excavations outside the dooryard fence and grabbed 
the slop buckets, or a scoop every time they came 
to the house. I gave my specimens nearly as good 
care as the hogs and made sheep of them. My first 
.sheep trade was in ISGl. when I paid 50 cents for 
a little old fine ewe. She had two pounds of wool 
and two lambs the next year. I got my money out 
'of the wool, and as it wasn’t thought safe in tho.se 
days for a boy to be trusted with too much wealth, 
my father got $8 for the lambs. I have often 
tliought since that if that money had come to me 
there would have been no wool scarcity in the world, 
I could have stopped the shoddy business in its in¬ 
fancy and had the whole human race wearing first¬ 
hand woolens, and to digress here, there is every 
kind of encouragement for l)oys to buy pigs or ac¬ 
cept them, when .shee]) would be nicer to associate 
with and net more profit. 
MARKET FOR WOOL.—Another reader writes 
me that it is hard to sell wool, and that he gets only 
Cutting a Field of Alfalfa in Virginia. Fig. 301 
