"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 to death. None of your sending
sheep to market with their legs tied together, and jammed in a cart, and
sweating and suffering for me. They've got to go standing comfortably on
their legs, or go not at all. And I'm going to know the butcher that
kills my animals, that have been petted like children. I said to
Davidson, over there in Hoytville, 'If I thought you would herd my sheep
and lambs and calves together, and take them one by one in sight of the
rest, and stick your knife into them, or stun them, and have the others
lowing, and bleating, and crying in their misery, this is the last
consignment you would ever get from me.
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