| OCR Text |
Show In the last few years of the past century and the first years of this one when the dollar was hard to come by, the cost of starting a new sheep business was comparatively high. A new herd usually involved the purchase of sheep wagons, commissary wagons, several span of horses, some riding horses or mules, harnesses, saddles, bridles, and enough sheep to comprise a herd. It meant that a man mortgaged his future for years to come in order to become an established sheepman. John K was no exception. He disliked debt but knew he had no alternative at that time than to take his chance on making sheep pay. It wasn't as if he were a novice-having to still learn the ways of the sheep, the trail, or the camp. By the time he ventured to obligate himself to such an extent he had gained apprenticeship benefits of a dozen years of experience with a sheep herd. As a responsible twenty-five year old man he continued to assume the routine of long, slow trailing to the spring grass range on the hills or in rented fields, and then to summer vegetation in the mountains east of Mt. Pleasant. And after a season there he moved his sheep west to desert brush country in western Utah (bordering Nevada) near Garrison in Snake Valley There a variety of small grass, and of brush and greasewood provided nourishment for his sheep in cold weather. A light snowfall sometimes supplemented moisture for them, but regular drinking water was found in springs and waterholes-some of them manmade. 56 |
