It is claimed by many that raising sheep is more profitable than raising cattle. Whether this be true or not, the sheep business of the New West has become very extensive. Flocks of from one to ten thousand are numerous. They multiply very rapidly, so that a flock of one thousand is doubled and trebled in a marvellously brief period. It is estimated that there are four hundred and fifty million sheep in the world, and that about one-seventh of them--(66,000,000) sixty six million--are raised in the United States. Of this number the New West has its full share.

     We have collected estimates of the profits of sheep-raising from various sources, to which we shall first call attention.

     Mr. Hayes has the following in Harper's Monthly of January, 1880, and he says of the figures:--

     "They apply to the case of a man with capital, coming out, not to take up or pre-empt land, but to buy a ranch ready to his hand.

     "Such a one, capable of accommodating five thousand head of sheep, could be had, say, for $4,000, comprising at least three claims three to five miles apart, also proper cabins, corrals, etc. A flock of two thousand assorted ewes, two to three years old, should be bought at an average of $3 each, say $6,000; and 60 bucks at an average of $30, or $1,800. A pair of mules and a saddle-horse will cost $275; and we will allow for working capital, $1,925. Capital invested, say, Oct. 1, $14,000.

     "Under ordinarily favorable circumstances, and with great care, one may expect during May his lambs, and estimate that there will be alive of them at time of weaning a number equal to seventy-five per cent of his ewes, or, say, one thousand five hundred, on the 1st of October, a year from the time of beginning operations.

     "His gross increase of values and receipts will then be, for that year, as follows:--

     An official document from Idaho says:--

     "There are not many sheep raised here, but the business is a good one. Some time since I had a conversation with a friend in relation to his experience in sheep-raising, and learned the following facts:--

     "During the time he had not purchased any sheep, and was unable to tell the amount of wool he had sold, but it is fair to presume that the amount received for the sale of wool would more than pay for the labor of looking after his flock, and the small amount expended in buying what hay was fed to them.

     Mr. Fossett says of sheep-raising in Colorado:--

     "Thus far, the business of sheep-raising in Colorado has been very profitable. A flock of 1,800 ewes, costing $4,500, were placed on a ranch in Southern Colorado. In eight years 1,600 sheep were killed for mutton, and consumed on the ranch, and 7,740 were sold for $29,680. There are 14,800 head on hand, worth, at $3 per head, $44,400. The wool-clips paid for shepherds and all current expenses. The result shows a net profit over the original investment of $69,520, equal to 193 per cent per annum for eight years in succession. Per contra, out of a flock of 1,200 very fine, selected ewes, worth $4 per head, 800 died during a storm of two days last March. The 400 that survived raised last summer more than that number of lambs. The dog is a valuable auxiliary in the care of sheep. The 'Scotch collie' surpasses all others in his natural aptitude for this work, and often-times one well-trained sells for $150."

     A reliable estimate from Montana shows the attractions of that territory for the sheep-raiser:--

     "Profits on wool-growing are estimated by many as greater than on cattle-raising; and even the more conservative breeders figure a profit of from 25 to 35 per cent per annum upon all capital invested, and all agree that the wool clip will pay every item of expense, leaving the increase a clear gain. The loss from all causes is estimated at from 2 to 3 per cent. The annual increase of flocks is placed at 48 per cent, and the increase of 1,000 ewes, 2 years old and upwards, from 80 to 150 per cent, probably averaging 90 per cent. Sheep sell readily at from $3 to $3.50 per head. One herder can take care of 2,000 head. Sheep-raising is emphatically the poor man's industry in Montana; for, having a free range, timber at hand for construction of sheds and corrals, and, in fact, no capital needed for running expenses after the first season, he is master of the situation if he can command any sum from $500 upwards for the purchase of a small flock.

     "A careful calculation of the profit on 1,000 ewes for a term of 5 years, made by a prominent sheep-owner, shows the following:--

|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|   YEAR.  |   EWES. |  INCREASE. |   EWES. |   WETHERS. |     CLIP. |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|First  .  |  1,000  |     700    |   350   |     350    |   $1,000  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Second .  |  1,175  |     822    |   411   |     411    |    1,700  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Third  .  |  1,555  |   1,088    |   544   |     544    |    2,522  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Fourth .  |  2,033  |   1,423    |   711   |     711    |    3,710  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Fifth  .  |  2,660  |   1,862    |   931   |     931    |    5,032  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Totals .  |   ...   |   5,895    | 2,947   |  2,947     |  $13,964  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------|


Total wool clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .  $13,964
5,895 sheep, at $3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .    17,685
30 Merino bucks, at $25  . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .       750
Interest on cash obtained for wool . . . . . . .. . . . .     3,684
                                                         ----------
                                                            $36,083

                         Investment and Expense.

1,000 ewes, at $3  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    $3,000
Cabin, shed, and canvas  . . . . . . . . . . . .       800
32 Merino bucks, at $50  . . . . . . . . . . . .     1,600
Herders' wages and board . . . . . . . . . . . .     2,600
Taxes and minor expenses . . . . . . . . . . . .     1,000   11,100
                                                    ______   ______
Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .   $24,983

     Another estimate from an official document of Kansas is as follows:--

     "The following estimate of the cost of a start in sheep-raising is made officially in the reports of the State, and assumes that the investor takes personal charge of the place, as a man would be likely to do who starts on a capital of $3,500, beginning operations about April 1, and performing most of the labor necessary to produce the crops himself; the purchase of sheep to be made Sept. 15 following, by which time preparations for shelter and feed are substantially perfected.

     "If the ranchman desires a larger dwelling than the one provided, the land can be bought of the railroad company on 6 years' time, at 7 per cent interest, thus reserving a larger portion of cash for additional improvements. Or, he could purchase 320 instead of 160 acres, as estimated, the annual payments on which could be promptly met from sales of wool, increase of flock, or grain grown, if an additional acreage were put under cultivation. This would, no doubt, be a profitable investment, as an increase in value of real estate is not improbable.

                            Investment.

160 acres of land, at $2.50 . . . . . . . . .  $400.00
House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   300.00
Corrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   100.00
Windmill, pump, and troughs . . . . . . . . .   125.00
Team, wagon, and harness  . . . . . . . . . .   325.00
Farming implements  . . . . . . . . . . . . .    50.00
500 Merino ewes, at $3  . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500.00
6 Merino bucks, at $25  . . . . . . . . . . .   150.00     2,950.00
                                             ---------    ---------
Cash  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      550.00
                                                          ---------
Total  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .   $3,500.00

     "On such an investment a profit of 25 per cent, exclusive of the advance in the value of the land, may be counted upon, and a living made in the meantime."

     A. S. Eaton, of Russell County, Kansas, says:--

     "A sheep-master can realize from 40 to 70 per cent on his investment, according to the care and attention he gives to his flock. My sales last year, from a herd of 1,550 sheep, amounted for wool and sheep to $6,116.28. My expenses of running the business, including taxes, were $900. I reduced my herd by 250 sheep; but I consider my flock worth as much to-day as one year ago. Yet, deducting the amount that the 250 wethers were sold for, viz., $750, would yet leave $4,366.28, or some 75 per cent on my investment, ranch and all included."

     The reader will be interested in the description of a mammoth sheep ranch, which, if not exactly embraced in the New West, is more nearly related to it than to any other part of the world.

     "The little schooner Santa Rosa arrived in port from Santa Barbara a few days ago," says the San Francisco Call. "She comes up to this city twice a year to secure provisions, clothing, lumber, etc., for use on Santa Rosa Island, being owned by the great sheep-raiser, A. P. Moore, who owns the island and the 80,000 sheep that exist upon it. The island is about 30 miles south of Santa Barbara, and is 24 miles in length and 16 in breadth, and contains about 74,000 acres of land, which are admirably adapted to sheep-raising. Last June Moore clipped 1014 sacks of wool from these sheep, each sack containing an average of 410 pounds of wool, making a total of 415,740 pounds, which he sold at 27 cents a pound, bringing him in $212,349.80, or a clear profit of over $80,000. This is said to be a low yield; so it is evident that sheep-raising there, when it is taken into consideration that shearing takes place twice a year, and that a profit is made of the sale of mutton, etc., is very profitable. The island is divided into four quarters by fences running clear across at right angles; and the sheep have not to be herded like those ranging about the foothills.

     Four men are employed regularly the year round to keep the ranch in order and to look after the sheep; and during shearing time fifty or more shearers are employed. These men secure forty or fifty days' work; and the average number of sheep sheared a day is about ninety, for which five cents a clip is paid; thus, $4.50 a day being made by each man, or something over $200 for the season, or over $400 for 90 days out of the year. Although the shearing of 90 sheep a day is the average, a great many will go as high as 110; and one man has been known to shear 125. Of course, every man tries to shear as many as he can, and, owing to haste, frequently the animals are severely cut by the sharp shears. If the wound is serious, the sheep immediately has its throat cut, and is turned into mutton and disposed of to the butchers; and the shearer, if in the habit of frequently inflicting such wounds, is discharged. In the shearing of these 80,000 sheep, a hundred or more are injured to such an extent as to necessitate their being killed but the wool and meat are, of course, turned into profit.

     "Although no herding is necessary, about two hundred or more trained goats are kept on the island continually, which to all intents and purposes take the place of the shepherd dogs so necessary in mountainous districts where sheep are raised. Whenever the animals are to be removed from one quarter of the island to another, the man in charge takes out with him several of the goats, exclaims in Spanish, "Cheva!" meaning sheep. The goat, through its training, understands what is wanted, and immediately runs to the band and the sheep accept it as their leader, following wherever it goes. The goat in turn follows the man to whatever point he wishes to take the band. To prevent the sheep from contracting disease, it is necessary to give them a washing twice a year. Moore having so many on hand, found it necessary to invent some way to accomplish this whereby not so much expense would be incurred and time wasted. After experimenting for some time, he had a ditch dug eight feet in depth, a little over one foot in width, and one hundred feet long. In this he put six hundred gallons of water, two hundred pounds of sulphur, one hundred pounds of lime, and six pounds of soda, all of which is heated to one hundred and thirty degrees. The goats lead the sheep into a corral or trap at one end, and the animals are compelled to swim through to the further end, thus securing a bath and taking their medicine at one and the same time.

     "The owner of the island and sheep, A. P. Moore, a few years ago purchased the property from the widow of his deceased brother Henry for $600,000. Owing to ill-health, he has rented it to his brother Lawrence for $140,000 a year, and soon starts for Boston, where he will settle down for the rest of his life. He still retains an interest in the Santa Cruz Island ranch, which is about 25 miles southeast of Santa Barbara. This island contains about 64,000 acres, and on it are 25,000 sheep. On Catanna Island, 60 miles east of Santa Barbara, are 15,000 sheep. On Clementa Island, 80 miles east of that city, are 10,000 sheep. Forty miles west of the same city is San Miguel, on which are 2,000 sheep."

     Sheep are raised both for food and clothing. Figures already given show to what enormous proportions the industry has grown, with plenty of room to double, treble, and quadruple it. The best breeds for raising wool are selected, and these are tended with great care and study, so that improvement in breeds and methods are marked and rapid. One of the most remarkable sheep for yielding wool known to herders is represented by the cut above--a ram of peculiar make-up, with a fleece of such length and density as to weigh from twenty-two to twenty-five pounds. His sire was Captain Jack; hence the above is Captain Jack, Jr. He combines two leading features in Merino breeding, length of staple and density of fleece, without the usual accompaniment of superfluous oil, and massive wrinkles with coarse and hairy folds. He weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds, and is closely built to the ground. That God made him for usefulness there can be no question; for he yields as good mutton for eating as he does wool for weaving into cloth.

      A great variety of sheep are raised in the New West, so many that we shall not attempt to enumerate them here. A variety of breeds from foreign countries adds some of the finest to Western flocks. The opinions of shepherds differ in respect to the classification of different breeds of sheep, as cattlemen differ respecting breeds of cattle.

     Shearing time is a lively season, and sheep-shearers are a unique class of men. Some of the California sheep-shearers excel all others in the number they will divest of their fleeces in a single day. It is claimed that some of them will shear 125 sheep per day, and that the average of shearers per day, in disposing of a large flock, is 90.

     The price paid for shearing is from four to six cents apiece, averaging five cents.

     The Union Pacific Railroad has erected extensive sheds for the accommodation of wool-growers and their flocks. These sheds are erected at convenient stations along the line. Sheep-raisers find it more convenient to drive their flocks to the railway station, and shear them there, than to shear them at home, and transport the wool thither. The plan has proved successful. The sheds are sufficiently large to accommodate from thirty to one hundred shearers at a time. The railway company has also built large corrals in which the sheep are folded. Then there are small enclosures for each shearer, into which fifteen or twenty sheep can be put. When a sheep is sheared the fleece is tied together by the shearer and put into a bag hanging down from the loft. Every two feet these bags are hanging, and when they are filled, men in the loft draw them up, assort, weigh, and ship the wool.

     The illustration represents the method of bagging wool for shipment. When the shearer has completed his flock, he cries out "check," and a man in waiting drives the sheep from the pen, and other men soon fill it up again with another flock.

     The sheep are counted after they are sheared. They are driven from the pen through a small passage where they are readily counted before entering the large corral beyond. The cut opposite represents the sheep going through this passage-way to the large enclosure.

     A few years ago, on July 8, at Hugo, Col., twelve thousand sheep belonging to the Holt Live Stock Company were sheared, and then driven back to the ranch. TWELVE THOUSAND IN ONE DAY creates a scene scarcely second to a "round-up" for the entertainment of spectators!

     A writer rehearses several incidents that are instructive to readers who desire to know somewhat of the sheep business. Speaking of the eastern friends at the ranch, he says:--

     "One very hot day they braved the heat themselves for the sake of going out on the prairie to see how sheep keep cool. Instead of scattering along the creek, seeking singly the shade of the bushes or the tall trees only to be found near the creek, they huddle together in the middle of the sunny field, more closely than ever, hang their heads in the shadow of one another's bodies, and remain motionless for hours. Not a single head is to be seen as you approach the herd; only a broad level field of woolly backs, supported by a small forest of little legs.

     "To see the sheep go in and out, night and morning, was a never-failing amusement. Sometimes the ladies wandered down to the corrals at sunset to see the herds come in, and you would have supposed them to be waiting for a Fourth-of-July procession with banners, from the eagerness with which they exclaimed, 'Oh, here they come! there they are!' as the first faint tinkling of the bells was heard in the distance. If two herds appeared at once from opposite directions, the one with lambs had the 'right of way,' and Sly, the sheep-dog,-- not the only commander who has controlled troops by sitting down in front of them,--would hold the other herd in check till the lambs were safely housed.

     "They had arrived just in the midst of lambing, and each herd, as it came in at night, would number more than when it went out in the morning, the little lambs that had been born on the prairie during the day taking their constitutional of two or three miles back to the corral that they had never seen, as easily and with as much dignity as if they had known all about it for years. At the mature age of three or four days, however, some of them would decide that they preferred to remain on the open prairie; then woe to the unhappy herder! Many and many a night would the ladies walk out to meet the herd, on the sole chance of seeing the inimitable fun of such a catastrophe. For pure, unadulterated amusement, I know of nothing equal to witnessing the chase of a grown man over a boundless prairie after a little creature less than a foot long and not more than three days old.

     "The running of a man for his hat is nothing to the entertainment of such a spectator; the struggles of the driver of a refractory mule are nothing to the sufferings of such a herder. It is martyrdom without any glory, and I believe the lamb is seldom caught or tired out without the aid of a sheep-dog."

     Sheep-raisers have exhausted their ingenuity in devising the most convenient methods for feeding sheep. The following cut is the latest invention introduced into the New West:--

     The diameter of the rack is five and one-half feet; height, four feet nine inches. Twenty two bars in the outside rack admit of twenty-one sheep feeding at once. The bars, one and one-half inches in diameter, are made to turn easily in the top and bottom sockets. There is a space of seven inches between the outside and the inside bars; the latter, thirty-three in number, are four inches apart and a square inch in size. Within this rank of bars is a wooden cone, three feet and nine inches in diameter at the base, and three feet high. This cone, with the arrangement which holds the two ranks of bars at the top of the rack, forms the receptacle of the forage. A plinth, three inches wide, is attached to the top and another to the bottom of the rack, outside the exterior rank of bars, and completes the whole.

     "The following are the advantages of this rack: being circular, each sheep can feed without annoying its neighbor, and the ewes and lambs are thus freed from all chance of injury. The bars revolving on their supports, the sheep do not rub their necks in feeding. If the rack is placed under a shoot or trap-door, the hay or straw can be dropped into it, without falling on the sheep, and thereby soiling the wool. If, instead of forage, roots are given to the sheep, the bottom of the rack, with its plinth, forms a convenient receptacle for them."

     The editor of the Journal of Agriculture, speaking of the habits of sheep, says:--

     "Sheep adapt themselves to a wider latitude than any domesticated animal, except dogs. For more than a thousand years they have been raised with profit in Iceland, where the climate is so cold that few cultivated crops can be produced. They are also raised with profit in all the countries of Europe and Asia that border on the North Sea. Sheep raising has lately been undertaken in Patagonia with excellent promise of success. South Africa and all the islands in the Indian Ocean are found to be well adapted to the raising of sheep. Spain and Asiatic Turkey have long produced most excellent wool, although the climate of these countries is very warm. Sheep do well in every State and Territory in this country, and are better adapted to poor land than any other domesticated animal except the goat. There is economy in keeping a few sheep in pastures that are chiefly evoted to other animals, for the reason that the former will eat many kinds of weeds and grasses that the latter will leave."