Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/244

Rh snack of dry food, to break them in to it. They are in and out of those sheds all winter. You must go in, Laura, and see the self-feeding, racks. On bright, winter days they get a run in the cornfields. Cold doesn't hurt sheep. It's the heavy rain that soaks their fleeces.

"With my way I seldom lose a sheep, and they're the most profitable stock I have. If I could not keep them, I think I'd give up farming. Last year my lambs netted me eight dollars each. The fleeces of the ewes average eight pounds, and sell for two dollars each. That's something to brag of in these days, when so many are giving up the sheep industry."

"How many sheep have you, uncle?" asked Miss Laura.

"Only fifty, now. Twenty-five here and twenty-five down below in the orchard. I've been selling a good many this spring."

"These sheep are larger than those in the orchard, aren't they?" said Miss Laura.

"Yes; I keep those few Southdowns for their fine quality. I don't make as much on them as I do on these Shropshires. For an all-around sheep I like the Shropshire. It's good for mutton, for wool, and for rearing lambs. There's a great demand for mutton nowadays, all through our eastern cities. People want more and more of it. And it has to be tender, and juicy, and finely flavored, so a person has to be particular about the feed the sheep get."

"Don't you hate to have these creatures killed, that you have raised and tended so carefully?" said Miss Laura with a little shudder.

"I do," said her uncle, "but never an animal goes off my place that I don't know just how it's going to be put