Items of Interest July 4, 1914 Issue

Items of Interest

As a result of experiments during the past few years, the department of agriculture is now advocating the use of the bedding-out system of herding sheep on open ranges, instead of the old close-herding system which has heretofore been in use. This system gets its name from the fact that the herder who attends the band, camps and beds his flocks wherever the sheep find themselves at nightfall. Under the old plan he established a fixed camp and bed-ground and drove the sheep back to the same place each night. Through experience on the national forest ranges last year, the department states that lambs from bedded-out bands were five pounds heavier on an average at the end of the season than those which were trailed to and from established bed-grounds, and that the range can carry from 10 to 25 per cent more sheep than when so much is trampled out in traveling back and forth. The disadvantages of the old system were that the forage suffered by being badly trampled, and was actually destroyed at and near the bed-grounds; the sheep lost weight in going to and from the camps, and in dry weather suffered not a little from dust and from crowding. Moreover, under the old system the sheep were kept pretty well bunched; under the new plan they graze at will in scattered, open flocks and are constantly moving through new feed instead of traveling over areas already fed over. There are few sheep lost.

The principal provisions of the three bills—the Covington trade commission, the Rayburn railroad stocks, and the Clayton omnibus measures—constituting the administration trust program passed by the House of Representatives, are as follows:—

The interstate trade bill provides for the establishment of a board of three members to have control over industrial corporations, similar to the control exercised over railroads by the interstate commerce commission; it provides that all corporations, with a capital of not less than five million dollars, except those now subject to the interstate commerce commission, shall submit annual reports of its financial condition to the commission. The commission may also designate corporations having a capitalization of less than five million dollars from whom it desires reports. It may call for special reports in addition. The Rayburn bill, amending the interstate commerce law, makes it unlawful for any common carrier to issue stocks, bonds, notes, or other evidences of indebtedness, without the approval of the commission. The bill gives the commission power to require information from railroads and other common carriers and prescribes an elaborate system of reports. The Clayton bill is designed to strengthen and support the Sherman law and other acts against monopolies and restraint of trade.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"The only begotten Son"