QQ SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



the fields. But they become breachy and trespass upon neighbors ; 

 besides running over the frozen uplands, perhaps already cropped 

 down to the surface by cows, with their close cutting apparatus 

 they pare off all the succulent roots of herds grass, and of course 

 kill it beyond all recovery. The prudent farmer concludes that 

 that this will not do, and so he folds his sheep and begins to feed 

 them hay, perhaps a month before it would be necessary if he had 

 any pasturage for them. In England the farmer has his turnip 

 field, into which he turns his flock during this period, and indeed 

 more or less through the winter, but our climate will not permit us 

 to risk roots in the ground after the first of November. But if 

 clover fields, say when clover is the second year from the seed, 

 and destined to die in the winter, were reserved, and also stubble 

 ground where the new clover and old grain stalks might be cropped 

 with benefit, the manure deposited being worth more than the 

 herbage cropped ; these, with wooded pastures where browse 

 could be obtained, would keep the sheep well into December, and 

 later with potatoes, and some fodder if the winter was an open 

 one. To secure the sheep in that part of the field designed for them 

 there should be movable hurdles to put up with stakes. An old- 

 countryman would readily construct these out of our everywhere 

 abundant white birches and poplars ; but near a mill or machine 

 shop it seems to me sawed slats, in small rails bored by machinery 

 would be cheaper than the withe hurdles. These would be found 

 very useful in making temporary separations of bucks and lambs 

 from the rest of the flock. 



Another item on the debit side of the account of sheep-keeping 

 which may be attacked is the hay bill, which I have reckoned at 

 $10 per ton. Any substitution of equivalent qualities of straw 

 and potatoes, and if you cannot raise them, of turnips or mangolds, 

 by which the farmer can save his hay and save expense, ought to 

 be tried. Pease, with us a sure crop, is a fine feed for the forma- 

 tion of both flesh and wool. On the best German sheep farms a 

 course of fodder, roots and grain is used, variety promoting the 

 health of the animals. The basis of fodder is straw rather than 

 hay. My limits will not permit me to furnish here the difierent 

 quantities of oat straw, barley straw, pease, beans, potatoes, tur- 

 nips, &c., that have found to be equivalent in value for feeding 

 purposes to one pound of English hay. I doubt however, if there 

 can be much saving. What is valuable cods, and without liberal 

 feeding you can produce neither wool nor lambs. 



