Breeding for Adaptability to Local Conditions, with Special Reference to Sheep on the Navajo Indian Reservation

Abstract

It has been my privilege to be associated with the experimental sheep breeding work conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture in several very different portions of the United States. These assignments were in the New England, Intermountain, Northern Great Plains and Southwestern regions. On these various assignments I have had an opportunity to become familiar with the general problems of the region while engaged in the work on the immediate project. Normally each of the widely different regions in this country demands and accepts a different type of sheep. It is true that in some instances over-zealous promotion may temporarily popularise a type not well adapted to the region, but this situation rarely persists for any great length of time. In general, sheep type in any locality is dictated by the type of agriculture, the climate, forage, transportation, and the demands of the market. In some instances several different breeds of the same general type may be found in a region, while in others type modifications within a breed may be encountered in different regions.