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of business, I will answer the few questions asked by you as accurately as I can, 

 and perhaps besides these add a little moi-e. I am aware that I can give you no 

 new ideas on sheep management, yet I am willing, and will with pleasure give 

 the Society my views of sheep, and my management of them. 



I have at present five hundred /?^/^ blood Saxony sheep. I purchased the flock 

 with which I commenced in 1844, in Dutchess county, N. Y., and Litchfield 

 county, Ct. ; they originated mostly from the importation of H. D. Grove, of 

 Hoosack, N. Y. ; but of late I have been breeding from bucks of the late import- 

 ations of Charles B. Smith, of Woolcotville, Ct. Mr. Smith was associated with 

 some gentlemen in New York in these importations ; the number imported was 

 .small, I think less than fifty; they were imported expressly for their own farms, 

 and Mr. Smith said selected with much care ; and judging from the sheep, I think 

 Mr. Smith is justifiable in so saying, for, in my opinion, they are about what a 

 fine wooled sheep should be. 



During the summer, after shearing, my sheep receive but little attention, ex- 

 cept to see that they do not become destroyed by dogs, or wolves, or strayed 

 away, and are salted twice a week ; for this, I keep a boy with my sheep through 

 the day, and turn them in a yard at night ; I pasture my sheep, with the excep- 

 tion of my bucks, on the unfenced prairie, from about the twentieth of April to 

 the first of October ; then I put them on my cultivated grass, and there they 

 remain until I am compelled to sort my ewes in classes, for the buck, which is 

 about the fifth of December, • 



I always feed them a small quantity of oats, in the sheaf, for at least ten days 

 before I put them in the yard for winter, believing, that one bushel of grain at 

 this time is worth more than two at any other time you can give it to them; for 

 at this time the grass has been fi-equently frozen, and has lost much of its former 

 richness ; and I think one of the great secrets in wintering sheep well, is to put 

 them in the yard in good condition. 



In winter I keep my sheep in open yards, always providing them with good 

 shelter and plenty of water. I feed them in the common box racks set in the 

 open yard, with as much good hay as they will eat. I feed no grain, or roots, 

 except to my lambs, and occasionally to an invalid. I keep salt and ashes mixed — 

 one part ashes, two parts salt — in a trough under shelter, where they can have 

 free access to it. I formerly salted my hay when I put it up ; a practice which 

 I condemn at present, believing that salt will be eaten, when needed, without 

 compelling them to eat it at every mouthliil of hay they eat; and besides this, I 

 have noticed that in extreme cold weather when they had access to salt they 

 would eat but little, and as the weather moderated they would eat much more; 

 showing that they had a choice when to eat it — and, I believe, that choice should 

 be gratified. 



