SIX SHEEP MORE PROFITABLE THAN ONE C0W.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1346, 15 February 1881, Page 2

SIX SHEEP MORE PROFITABLE THAN ONE COW.

By careful observation I have found that as a rulo six Cots wold sheep can be kept on what will be required to keep a cow. A neighboui' of mine who has a line flock of giade Cotswolds informs tne that by selling his iambs at odols. 50c. each and wool at 36c. he has realised lldol. loc. a head. From my own experience I think we can safely count on 501bs. of wool, and at least eight lambs from nix ewe 3. My I flock has always exceeded that both in wool and number of lambs. Fifty pounds of wool at 40c, 20dol. ; eight lambs at odol. each, 40dol. Five dollars may seem too high for grade lambs, but I can assure any reader who differs from me in these estimates, that a lamb that weighs 125 pounds will find pmchasers and will be a good investment at that price. | The amount invested in. a cow aud iv six sheep is nearly equal, but when we compare the labour and oare required to | make either of the two industries a success we shall find it incomparably iv favour of the sheep. There is no business so rigidly exacting, cpunected with the farm, as dairyman. Milking must be done twice a day, and should be clone at regular hours and by the same person to secure the best result. Another item largely in favour of sheep is that their product is of such a nature that if the market is not favourable for selling, it can I be kept until a more favourable market presents itself without its becoming unmarketable. But not §o with butter and cheese. These must be crowded off on the market, however badly glutted that market may be, as it might as well be sacrificed abroad as spoiled at home. It might be objected to bysome reader that our comparison is unfair because the sheep and wool business is buoyant, and that the dairy has for the past two years been unusually depressed. • I would remind the objectors that in our calculations we have figured wool at 20 per cent, less than it is now worth and less than any average for the last teu years.—Correspondent Ohio Farmer.

The Photophone —Professor Graham Bell has devised an instrument, which he calls the photophone, which will transmit speech by the simple agency ,of light, without electric wires or any mechanical medium. Writing in a contemporary, ProfessorS. P. Thompson ,thus explains the principle on which the photophone— which seems to bear the same relation to the telephone that the heliograph bears to telegraphy — is constructed , and used — V You speak to a transmitting-instru-ment, which flashes the vibrations along a beam of light to a distant station, where a receiving-instrument converts the light intQ 'audjble speech, The transmitter consists of a plane silvered mirror of glass or mic». Againafc the bacfc of (this flexible mirror the speaker's voice is directed ; a powerful Seam of light is caught by a' lens ; from tbe sun and directed ; upon , the mirror, so as to be, reflecte&straight to the j distant station, ,£hisj;beam of %b,f; Js. ] fchrqwijby Jhe speaker's yoica into Gorresr. pQnding vibrations. At the, distant , station tlje b^eam , is receiyod;' by qiuother j«nrrqr/»nd; concentrated ' upon,* simpl«