Owing to the increasing importance of the sheep industry and the frequent inquiries received concerning diseases of this animal, many of which are imperfectly understood by sheep raisers and veterinarians, it was deemed advisable to investigate and obtain as much information of diseases of sheep occurring in this state as could be done in a comparatively short period of time, with the facilities at our command.

The territory west of the 100th meridian, known as the Range, is rapidly becoming the great breeding ground for cattle and sheep. Already this locality is producing about one-half of the total number of sheep in the United States. This is pre-eminently a grazing country and must largely remain so. The natural conditions will not permit of the production of sufficient corn and other grain to properly fatten the stock grown in the range territory. The finishing can only be done by the utilization of some of the surplus grain crops of the upper Mississippi valley states. These states have lately been reducing their stock production and increasing their grain crops. The seven states constituting the corn belt produced over one and a half billion bushels of corn and about 237 million bushels of oats in 1896; and Iowa alone produced nearly 322 million bushels of corn and 105 million of oats, according to the statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture. In addition to this there was a large surplus of both corn and oats left over from 1895, and there has not yet been a profitable cash market for this enormous product. In view of these conditions, the Iowa station deemed it of interest to determine what opportunities were offered for a profitable market in feeding some of this surplus grain to range lambs. This inquiry was doubly urgent inasmuch as the cattle supply was short and hog cholera had swept the state and destroyed over 2,000,000 hogs.

Not long since, the prevailing system of raising calves in Iowa and other agricultural states of similar conditions consisted in allowing the calf to follow the dam and take all of the milk. With the advent of the creamery and the separator came new methods. Now the former system is the exception on a majority of farms even where beef production is a prime object. Whole milk is too expensive for calf feeding and the better utilization of butter fat for dairy purposes necessitates the use of separator or skim milk for feeding. This necessity has appeared to be a serious obstacle, and calf raising in many sections devoted to dairying has been largely abandoned until the recent advance in prices of young stock set in.

The experiment reported in Bulletin No. 32 from this Station during the winter of 1895 regarding quick and slow ripening of cream was repeated to determine whether the same results would be found under summer conditions.

Beginning May 15, we took each day, 400 pounds of cream, placed it in a vat, thoroughly mixed it so the per cent of fat and the acidity would be the same. We then divided it into two portions, placing 200 pounds in each of the two small vats.