Strange indeed are the habits of thought of people on the plains, especially cattlemen, in regard to sheep. All the old misapprehensions about sheep remain — that they crop grass too closely, that they somehow ruin the range for cattle, that they are just not legitimate objects of animal husbandry. These prejudices go back to the days of the open range, when the big cattlemen sought to keep the range to themselves by terrorizing shepherds and killing their flocks.

Many are the old-timers of the Dakota range, however, who will admit that it was sheep, with their double crop of wool and meat, that got them through the hard times. We know, too, that sheep are great assets in environmental management. Sheep can be trained to eat leafy spurge, that pesky perennial weed of northern range lands, like it was candy. Nowadays it is fashionable among stockmen to cuss the invasive tendencies of bluegrass, brome, and crested wheatgrass, but somehow they don’t want to entertain the idea that early stocking with sheep might be an answer to these problems.

There was once a capable and articulate sheepherder who got tired of the popular disrespect for his profession and finally did something about it: he wrote a book. I’m talking about Archer B. Gilfillan, whose memoir, a cult classic published in 1929, is entitled, simply, Sheep...[click on Prairie Public Broadcasting to read the rest of the radio transcript]