Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1905-05-24
MORE SHEEP RAISED.
MUTTON AND WOOL GAINING
IN UNITED STATES.
Branch Of Farming That Is CROWN,
Remunerative and Popular in
the East as Well as the
West.

| country, writes the Washington core
| spondent of the Chicago Tribune. This
| is due primarily to the initiative of tn 2
department of agriculture, which for
the last ten years has been hammering
| at the farmer to raise sheep instead of
exporting his surplus grain, and which
has helped him in every way to this end
One result is that there were reported
| on the first of this year over AZ, O00, 900
sheep on the farms and ranches of the
United States, valued at 1927, 331 1855.
as against less than $4,000, 900 in 1899
The receipts of the Chicago stock yards
are reaching upward every year since
1894, when the yards took over million
more mutton sheep than in the pre-
vious year.
The department is anxious to impress
on the farmer the value of sheep as one
of his farm products, and it points out
that, while the sale of $1,000 worth of
corn takes from the soil $500 worth of
fertility, the farmer would have to
spend that much in fertilizers to recoup
the land. The same amount of corn con-
verified into good mutton and sold at
higher price than the corn would fetch
takes in the end from the land not over
$50 worth of fertility, and if the flock
was kept for wool alone it would not
reduce the value of the land more than
So or 81
There is particular interest attach
ing to the sheep raising problem just
now, because the price of mutton is 60
ing up by leaps, not only in the stores
where the consumer has to buy it, fo;
every one realizes this, but in Chicago,
where lambs recently have touched the
unprecedented figure of So per hundred
weight, and now are selling at abou.
SIPS.
During the early days in America
sheep were bred primarily for the wool
and during recent years we have been
Importing annually, in addition, from
s25,00O,OO0 to 100000 worth of wool.
But the wool industry in this country
has come to the point where itfrequent-
ly does not pay to raise the sheep for
the fleece alone. There has, therefore.
been an increasing effort to get good
combination breed that would live in
large fiocks on the range, furnish a good
fleece and at the same time be a good
mutton sheep.
The farmers of the east still are con-
fining themselves to the English breeds
OF downs and shires, which are great
meat producers, while the western
ranches depend largely on the old Mex
lean sheep, which is a descendant of
the fine merinos imported by the Span
lards, but which has been affected by en-
vironment till it has developed charac.
terlSt1cS of its own and is in a great
many respects an ideal sheep for the
range.
The fleece of the Mexican is made
finer and improved by the introduction
of pure merino rams on the range, and
when the strain of merino begins TO
show too much, making weaker and
more delicate sheep, with fine, silky
wool, the breed is strengthened by the
introduction of some coarser wool
sheep, like the Oxfords. So the balance
is maintained.
The department has convinced the
farmer of the value of sheep as one of
his farm products, but it is continuing
its educational work, and is anxious to
impress the farmer with the fact that
he still imports over half million dol
lars annually of Canadian mutton in
spite OF the heavy tariff against it.
The great work that the department
is striving for now is the eradication of
sheep scab, which costs the country
hundreds of thousands of dollars annu-
ally. The department commenced
in this direction several wears
ago.
Up to the present moment there are
two states entirely cleared of scab and
with the right to quarantine against the
rest OF the world, and as soon as the ma
tional government is allowed to go into
the remaining states and territories the
whole country will be cleared out and
the disease, which is the greatest foe
the sheep man has to encounter, will be
completely eradicated.
A good many non-farmers NAV not
know just what sheep scab is, and for
their benefit it may be well to say that it
is simply sheep parasite that gets un-
der the skin and causes the wool to
fall, completely running the fleece and
eventually weakening the sheep till # |
dies.
The disease is acutely contagious anu
till few years ago had spread all over
the United States without check being
found for it. Now, thanks to the de.
partment's work, it is known to be COM
paratively easily cured, the sheep being
simply dipped in solution that kills the
parasite. Ether, tobacco and sulphur |
or lime and sulphur are used for this. |
though there are a hundred different |
cures" now on the market.
Burglars Code.
A writer who has been Investigating |
the old subject of superstition among |
Ia owes III,