Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0415Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a large flock of sheep in a field. Above the image "80" is printed, below the image "13646 - Baa! Baa! Baa! 3,000 Sheep Astray on a Montana Range." is printd, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company COPYRIGHTED Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Portland, Oregon, London, Eng., Sydney, Aus." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
13646
A LARGE FLOCK OF SHEEP ON A MONTANA RANCH
The eastern three-fifths of the state of Montana consists of rolling plains lying at elevation of from 2,00 feet in the northeast to about 4,000 feet among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
The annual rainfall of Montana is only about 12 inches so that agriculture without irrigation is impossible. Here as in other parts of these high plains, or plateaus, sufficient grass grows without irrigation. This state leads in the number of sheep and the production of wool. Though the limcate of Montana is sevre, and the winter temperature is sometiems colder than 50 degrees below zero, the sheep for the most part, are not sheltered. The endency of the snow to drift leaves large areas of bunch grass exposed. Recently, however, ranchers and farmers have made provision for sheltering and feeding the sheep in bad weather.
Sheep and goats will pick their living on pasture so coarse and poor that horses or cattle would starve. They will eat Canada thistle and other bad weeds which other animals refuse. Sheep nip close to the ground when eating. For this reason they are great destroyers of weeds, and they also permanently injure the pasture.
In the west, professional shearers cut the wool in the spring. They start in the extreme southwest in early spring and gradually work norhtward, finishingin Montana about the middle of July. Hand shearing has given place to machine work, which gives a more even fleece with less danger of cutting the sheep. The plants are un with the gasoline engine, and the average shearer will clip on hundred sheep in a day, while some have a record for two hundred and fifty.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection