NOTES FROM AMERICA.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 815, 12 May 1910, Page 8

NOTES FROM AMERICA.

BOOM IN SHEEP. We .aro right now enjoying the most prosperous sheep times ever known (says tho "American Sheep Breeder"). With wool at 20 to 33 cents (10d. to IGSd.) per pound, and lambs at 10 cents' (5d.) the man who cannot make sheep pay better quit the husiness.

The current supply of hogs in the United States is at least GO per cent, below consumptive.needs. The "Breeders' Gazette" says that even under industrious breeding operations market experts believe that fivo years will elapse before pork-production will again be abreast of consumption, and every sow marketed during the approaching summer will delay the re-stocking process. Live stock grown in the .Western States used until recently to drain into Chicago for sale. Now thero is a big business done- in supplying Puget Sound and the Pacific seaboard cities, and the stock trains are running the other way. Puget rfound buyers go as far east as Montana, eastern South Dakota, and .Nebraska for their supplies.

There has been a complete reversal of conditions in the Chicago sheep market as compared with one year ago. Packers now seem hungry for fat sheep at 7 dollars 25 cents to 8 dollars 15 cents (about 30s. to 345.), while a year ago they .were indifferent buyers -at 5 dollars to 5 'dollars 50 cents. (about"2os. to 225.) for,;practically of offerings; , It would prove no surprise if sheep sold even higher than now. Fewer , ewes and wethers were fattened during the winter than-usual.-. This was.due in part to the adverse market conditions surrounding fat sheep in recent years, and ' also to the larger number held >bact. out 'on the western ranges. ■' - During the seven months ending January, 1910, United States exports of sheep 25,174. head, against nearly 49,000 for the. corresponding period last Many'old cows have been bought up at "about M 15s.'a , head ott..-the Texas ranches for shipment; to the Chicago yards..-.So■-scarce are good beef steers that £i is a common price for yearlings, and £6 for two-year-olds. The average cost. of. transporting. cattle .from the grazing lands of Texas to Chicago .was.estimated in 1908 at freni 325. lid. to 545. lid. per head.