GRADING SHEEP.

Patea Mail, 21 June 1881, Page 4

GRADING SHEEP.

Those who can afford to raise sheep can better afford to do it properly than to continue on in the old way of using common scrub rams upon the same kind of ewes. Such breeding is almost as bad as no breeding at all, for instead of yearly improving and approaching purity of blood the flock annually becomes weaker and of less value to the owner. Many there are who imagine that pure bred sheep of any strain are very expensive and only fit for fancy farming and men who have plenty of surplus capital to invest in fine stock. Then again there are some people who are just foolish enough to think it requires more attention, more care generally and more money to keep up a flock of pure bred animals after it is once started than to raise the common scrub sheep. This is most certainly a wonderful mistake. Pure bred or high grade animals of any kind will yield greater profits and thrive better on the same or less amount of food and with no more extra care than a lot of scrub stock receives. Or, grant that grade or purely bred sheep are more expensive than the others, is not the difference in the yield of wool and the quality of mutton great enough in favor 1 of the grades to more than doubly pay 1 the difference in the cost of production ? A man of very ordinary means can in a few years have a flock of sheep equal to the best if he uses ordinary good judg- ’ ment in his selections of ewes for ' breeding and constantly keeps at the > head of his fold a thoroughbred male, 1 Secure a few good common ewes at first, 1 and buy a purely bred ram every year 1 or two to couple with the best ewes in * the flock, and fatten for market the 1 inferior ones. Thus by using none but ' thoroughbred rams and selecting each ! year the best ewes in the flock for re- > production, sheepgrowing may be made * more profitable.—Chicago Drovers’ 1 Journal. ) - ■■■■ " ,■