-19- 
The highest price of the year is from a cent and a half to two cents 
a pound above the lowest, but just when this highest price is coming 
cannot be foretold. Particular attention is called to the variation 
between the high and low prices. These are on the average half a 
cent a pound, that is, the market price is constantly huctuating twenty- 
five cents a hundred each way from the average. These variations 
are due to the supply and demand, and are beyond the control of the 
feeder. In this lies the worst feature of all sheep-feeding, and it 
makes the profit always problematical until the sheep are actually sold. 
It takes five days to ship from Colorado and sell. When the sheep 
are loaded in Colorado, no one can tell within twenty-five cents each way 
as to what they will bring. The fifty cents difference in the price 
between a good market and a poor one often represents the whole 
profits of the winter and makes the difference between getting j ust 
market prices for the feed, or making in addition good wages for the 
work of feeding. I^o way has been devised for overcoming this diffi¬ 
culty, and it makes all sheep-feeding more or less a lottery. 
The winter of 1891-92 was a time of high prices for all meat products 
and the prices received for sheep were such as to leave a large margin of 
profit, even though high prices had been paid for them in the fall and 
much waste allowed to occur in the feeding. The market the next year 
was nearly as good, and the feeders began in the fall of 1893 with the 
idea that their profits were an assured fact. Some feeders paid as high 
as two dollars a head for small lambs in the fall. The spring market 
proved to be from a dollar to a dollar and a half a hundred less than 
the previous winter. The careful buyers and feeders still made money, 
but some of the less careful and experienced lost heavily. 
The average prices for 1894-95 have been about the same as for 
1893-94; but, profiting by previous experience, the sheep were 
bought more carefully in the fall, fed with less waste, and almost 
every feeder made good profits, while some made very good. 
In order more clearly to bring out the fluctuations in the market 
prices, the figures for the four years are gathered in the following 
tables: 
