298 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tables of Boussingault and of Lawes, acknowledged author- 

 ity, place the value of sheep-manure as thirty-six pounds 

 worth one hundred pounds of that of other animals. 



WINTER TREATMENT. 



There is no doubt but that, with a flock of coarse or mid- 

 dle wooled sheep, it is better for the sheep, the land, and the 

 owner, to keep them housed or sheltered, and well fed under 

 cover in winter, than to turn them out to gnaw a field of 

 turnips, as is practised in the milder winters of England, or 

 to wander round the fields, picking a poor living from coarse 

 hay, or corn-stalks, or dead grass, as is sometimes allowed in 

 New England. 



Cold is not to be so much guarded against as wet. Sheep 

 should have plenty of yard-room, a comfortable house or 

 shed, that may be closed if necessary, but with plenty of 

 ventilation. They should be fed regularly ; and the practice 

 varies somewhat. Some feed three times a day with hay, 

 and at noon a small feed of roots or corn : others feed twice, 

 with half a pint of corn at noon, and corn-stalks, bright oat- 

 straw, or other coarse fodder, at night. 



For fattening, the best feeders give corn, commencing with 

 a half-pint, increasing to a pint. Many feed a little cotton- 

 seed meal and some Indian, sometimes with oats and barley 

 ground with the corn, a little salt weekly; and pure run- 

 ning water always accessible is indispensable. A successful 

 sheep-grower of Massachusetts says, " The kind of food sup- 

 plied to sheep is hardly of greater importance than the 

 method of giving it. Sheep are powerful digesters, and are 

 capable of converting the dryest and coarsest herbage into 

 food, and extracting from it more nutritive matter than any 

 other animal. In proportion to their weight, they will con- 

 sume, therefore, a larger amount in bulk. 



" The instinct of sheep leads them to select high and dry 

 grounds, a.nd to range widely, feeding upon almost every 

 variety of herb and slirub. Linnseus found, by offering fresh 

 plants in the ordinary mode of feeding, that horses ate 274 

 species, and rejected 212 ; cattle ate 276, and refused 218 ; 

 while sheep took 887 species, and refused only 141. 



" In my winter management of sheep I give a fair amount 

 of nutritive food of every kind that it is good economy to 



