SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 57 



Mr. Spooner gives the English rule of foddering as 3 1-3 lbs. to 

 every one hundred lbs. live weight. The opinions of experienced 

 American wool-growers on this point, seem to be quite as variant 

 as among foreign writers on sheep husbandry. I have looked over 

 the statements of nine diffei*ent keepers of large flocks in New 

 Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania, and they esti- 

 mate differently from 120 lbs., the smallest, to 500 lbs., the largest, 

 as the weight of good hay necessary to winter a single sheep. 



To be better prepared to present this subject, I addressed letters 

 to some twenty-five difierent gentlemen in this county, who, I 

 knew had given some attention to sheep breeding and on this point of 

 the number of pounds of English hay necessary to winter a sheep in 

 this county, the opinions expressed seem to be very wide apart. 

 Mr. Wilson of Harrington, thinks 200 lbs. of hay will winter a 

 single sheep. Mr. Lowell of East Machias allows 300 lbs. Mr. 

 Levi Wass of Columbia, judges that it will require 600 lbs. Mr. 

 Dana of Perry, a very careful feeder and a scientific fai-mer, asserts 

 that from weighing of fodder for one winter fed to his flock, he 

 found they consumed 422 1-2 lbs. each, but he acknowledges that 

 he has not been able to exclude the bucks from his ewes, so as to 

 prevent his lambs coming in the winter. 



From all these data it seems safe to- estimate 400 lbs. as the quan- 

 tity of good hay necessary to winter well a single sheep, and if the 

 management I hereafter advise, as to winter grazing and late lambs 

 be followed, I think this quantity might be reduced to 350 lbs. 

 The hay raised upon our farms, although most seasons in good 

 markets it will nett more than that, cannot be reckoned higher for 

 all years and through the whole county, than $10 per ton. 



It has already appeared that in Germany, where lands are dear 

 and pasturage and fodder costly, money is made raising wool and 

 feeding not less than 5, and sometimes 6 months of the year. The 

 practice in the Northern and Middle States seems to be to stable 

 sheep from 5 months to 5 1-2 mouths. Our Washington county 

 farmers generally calculate to feed 150 days, but some say 120 

 days. It seems to me that by bringing on the yeaning season in 

 May, and having a pasturage of bushy land and stubble and clover 

 stalks for winter ranging before the snow comes, or during the 

 winter thaw, the feeding season may be reduced to 130 days. 



The next item is pasturage, — difficult to estimate in the case of 

 men who have abundance of open lands under fence, and which 



