The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1862-05-31

HOW TO GET GOOD FLOCK OF FINE WOOL
SHEEP.
1t is easily done, and cheaply. When in
Du Page county, last fall, l visited Luther
Bartlett, who told me his flock averaged
something over Eve pounds of wool per head
last season. / think he started few years
before with flock that would not average
three pounds. He had brought up his flock
TO the condition in which l found them,
by iudicious breeding-by purchasing or
hiring and using the best Spanish Merino
bucks.
is easy to see how cheaply and surely
an Indifferent flock will appreciate under
such management. If farmers who choose
to 90 into the wool business have not
capital to invest in full-blood ewes at present
prices, it will be found easy, in some local
tiles, TO purchase well formed native ewes,
with good sound constitutions, cheap
Then there are good bucks in the West that
can be bought or hired, and the work OF
building up a flock may commence at
once. That this class of sheep, if the first
selections are judiciously made, and the
breeding intelligently conducted, are profit
able, my own experience and the testimony
of many hockmasters with whom L have
talked, confirm. It will be good time to
purchase such stock after shearing.-C. u.
Brogdon.
FARMERS SHOULD RAISE MUTTON SHEEP.
A writer in the st. Adams vt. Messen-
ger strongly recommends to give more al
tention to raising long wooded or mutton
sheep. With them, he says, much less
labor is required to realize the same amount
of money, than with either cows, horses or
young cattle. The long-wooled, or mutton
variety = which are. perhaps, the best
adapted of any kind, to our soil and climate
are very hardy, and easily kept. They
are not liable to disease, or at least have
not been 80 in this vicinity; so there is little
risk to be feared in this respect. They are
evidently the kind for the times, when both
mutton and the coarser variety of wool are
in active demand. There is little trouble in
raising the lambs, for they are as hardy as
calves, and it is nothing uncommon to see
them outnumber the flock. Indeed, one
man in this place, the last season, raised
eighteen from nine ewes. Lambs of five or
six months are fit for market, which is not
the case with any other kind of stock; hence
the expense of wintering is avoided. The
past few wears, when beef has been dull and
hard to be disposed of. mutton has been in
good demand at profitable prices. Owing
to the war, the demand is steadily increas-
ing, and in consequence, there is large
call for store sheep at high figure, in an
ticipation of future requirements. Mutton
will undoubtedly continue in fair demand,
as there seems to be growing inclination
for this meat, in preference to beef or pork;
while, so long as cotton goods maintain
their present high prices, with still an up
ward tendency, there will be favorable in
ducement, not to say necessity, for employ
ing wool, so far as possible, IN all fabrics
for use or wear.
WOOL VS.. CORN, AS A MARKETABLE CROP.
A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer
saws: 81 fed seven thousand bushels of ten
cent corn-but worth that price only when
hauled seven miles to the railroad-to about
1000 sheep. One hand fed the 1000
bushels, and eight horses besides. To have
taken that corn seven miles, one load of forty
bushels every weekday, it would have re-
quired seven working months. 10 have
taken enough ten-cent corn to market to
obtain the same amount of money which
the 1000 bushels fed to sheep produced
for the wool, il would have required at least
four wears. On the other hand, hauled
the wool to the railroad at four loads, in two
days. So marketed my corn, so to speak,
in two days. To ship bushel of ten-cent
corn from Central Illinois (only seven
miles from the railroad to New York, costs
fifty cents, or FIVE bushels to pay the freight
on one bushel.''
1t would cost at least one-third more from
Central Iowa. To send ten cents worth of
wool to New York or Boston, would not
not cost over half cent. What prodi-
gious difference