402 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



our thoroughbred stock is best seen in the improvement made on our com- 

 mon or native stock. In these times of high-priced land, feed and labor, 

 sheep should not be kept that will not shear seven or eight pounds of good 

 washed wool per head, or ten to twelve pounds if unwashed. Such sheep can 

 be produced from the common sheep of our country by the use of good 

 thoroughbred sires and a careful management of the flock, which should be 

 thoroughly culled every fall, and the old, and weakly, bad formed, or poor 

 fleeced ones killed, sold, or put into the feeding pen for mutton. From such 

 flocks of well graded Merinos come the best feeding wethers that can be pro- 

 duced, and they are eagerly sought after by eastern feeders every fall at fair 

 prices. 



WASHING. 



The old and very injurious practice of washing sheep is needless and 

 ought to be abolished, and if the wool growers of the State would unite and 

 put their entire clips on the market unwashed, the indiscriminate rule of the 

 buyer to discount one-third on all unwashed wool, which makes it seem a 

 financial necessity for us to wash, would be broken, and our wool, like that 

 of Texas, Kansas, and the West, would go to the market unwashed and be 

 readily sold on its merits. Washing is not only cruel to the sheep but more 

 or less injurious to the fleece, especially to our best wools, for wool in which 

 there is a proper amount of oil cannot be well washed in common cold water. 

 The color and dirt from the outer ends of the fleece is carried through the 

 fleece and the entire length of the fibre becomes stained or crocked, thus 

 giving it a dull, dingy, dead appearance instead of that bright, lively 

 luster that we see in our well handled, unwashed fleeces. A sheep will pro- 

 duce more and better wool in the course of a year if shorn before the middle 

 of May, unwashed, than if forced to carry that heavy fleece and the filth they 

 naturally gather through mauy hot days till washing time, then be driven 

 several miles to the creek, and with heated blood plunged into the water and 

 soaked, and then left to carry its cold, wet mass of wool until dry, and finally 

 shorn and turned into the pasture to again suffer, this time from the want of 

 a little covering to protect from the extreme heat of the sun and the swarms 

 of mosquitoes and flies that attack them, while the early shorn sheep is by 

 this time provided with this protection and rests contented. 



FEEDING. 



Sheep in the fall should be sheltered from heavy rain storms, and not later 

 than November 1st the breeding ewes and lambs should be brought to the 

 barn or shed at night and fed what hay they will eat up clean, supposing 

 that the lambs have before this been given a small feed of oats, or oats and 

 bran once a day. If the pasture is very short (which is apt to be the case at 

 this time of year) we would also give a feed of oats once a day to the breed- 

 ing ewes. And it is much better to give grain at night as the sheep come 

 from the pasture as they relish it better then, and I hold that it does them 

 much more good than if eaten when their stomachs are empty. No portion 

 of the flock, however, should be allowed to run down before going into winter 

 quarters, for it is much easier to keep sheep up in good condition than to get 

 them up after they have run down. 



All ewes should be thoroughly tagged (and other sheep if they need it) and 



