Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1876 — The Sheep Question. [ARTICLE]

The Sheep Question.

“ I have about 200 and I wish I had less. ” This was the.answer which a noted farmer of this county gave to the inquiry of how man/ sheep he was shearing this season. The feeling is quite general among sheep-growers that they will be obliged to reduce their flocks or go out of sheep keeping entirely until better prices are assured. There is nothing strange or new in this. The same state of things as far as the price of wool is concerned has existed often within the memory of most men of fifty years; and farmers have as often been found selling off tlieir flocks in part, and very much neglecting those retained. We have labored against this course of sheep-breeders heretofore; and in every instance in the past when farmers have felt discouraged about growing wool and faiily becoming disgusted at the low prices they were getting for it, and resolved to get rid of their sheep at almost any figure that buyers might offer, they themselves have afterward seen that they were in error and admitted it. The fallacy, or we had better say tbe unsoundness, of the policy of abandonixg the production of such a staple product as wool, because the price rules low for a single season, will be quite apparent to us if we apply the rule to other staple products. It would require that wheat-rais-ing be suspended when tbe wheat market is dull ana prices run low, and with that, the growing of clover also to enrich the land; if pork paid no profit for a time we should breecr no hogs and reduce the com crop; if oats or potatoes wei;e low in price we should cease the growing’of these crops. It is plain enough that tills policy would not answer-in a b®tnessme that of* farming. No" prudent farmer would dare to relinquish wheat-growing because the price of a bushel of wheat at any particular time fell down to cost of productidn. His views in relation to the circumstances which govern the price of-wheat would teach him,that these are not of a permanent character, that a change must certainly take placs for tbe better m the course of another twelvemonth period. He therefore sows his fields again with wheat. But a farmer could suspend or reduce the production of any grain crop for a year or two with less danger and less doss than he will surely experience—we say surely—if he disposes of his flock of sheep. A good flock of sheep once gone is not easily replaced again. It cannot be done in a single year, or in two or three years; aha when it is once accomplished it is at a heavy expense. The wool-grower who now disposes of his flock will do so at very low rates of course. When he again wishes to begin wool-growing he will be obliged to pay a ropnd price for sheep. A fickle policy in the busipess of fanning will |pjure the farming interest as much as it would that of merchandising or manufacturing; and we believe that a system of .farming which embraces the production of all the staples, such as grain, grass, ahimals and wool,; in proper proportion, depending on -file size of .the farm, location and easy markets, and which produces these in uniform Quantity as nearly as may be, will prove the most successful system taking a life-time of it. In every event and in every change and chance, and especially in times of financial stringency like the present, the farmer who grows the most to file acre, who raises the greatest number of pounds of wool to the, head, is the most successful and has least cause for complaint. The wool-grower who sheare four to six pounds to the bead don’t compiaiß much if he does not realize more than two

shillings a |xmmi for- his wool. If wheat bring# but a dollar, the fields which turn out thirty bushels to the acre are not to be found fault with. If we could only grow two pounds of wool on a sheep during a year, or twelve bushels of wheat on an acre, we should feel Justified in relinquishing the business of both woo! and wheatgrowing; and farmers who have such sheep would find their best interests fdstered by selling them off and getting half the number which would produce more wool and cost less thanhalf to keep and care for .—Detroit Tribune.