No. 7. DEPATiTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 607 



Now, if you think tlie lambs cannot suck all the milk out so as 

 to get a fresh supply next time, it is wise to milk her for few days 

 until the lambs get bigger. 



Now, another thing: I am pretty near getting to the winter lamb 

 business, but I want to start you right for the spring, and then we 

 will start on that in the same way. Make a place where the lambs 

 can go in and the ewes can't follow, and make it so that they can 

 get in easier than out. The lamb is the creature of opportunity. 

 Most men are like them, and some of you men here will probably go 

 to the legislature some day, and some will probably go to the prison; 

 it all depends upon your opportunity. So, if the lamb has the 

 opportunity to go into this place he will do so. Place in that pen 

 a little trough, and in that trough some grain — wheat bran will 

 do, or a little corn meal, very coarse ground, or about ten per cent, 

 oil meal or buckwheat. It doesn't take long for these little fellows to 

 get started eating the grain, and I tell you they enjoy it. Then comes 

 the grass in the field, and here is something I want to impress upon 

 you; keep them oft" the grass when it is growing. When you turn 

 them out of the pen, turn them into a little yard, and keep it bright 

 and clean, and when you giA'e them grass, feed it to them on the 

 ground. Why? There is nothing in the grass beyond a little color- 

 ing matter, but until he gets iLomething to do, he does not need 

 very much of it. When I was ranching in the West, our only 

 anxious time was in the spring when the time came for the lambs to 

 be turned out. We had 100,000 acres of land, most of it in clover. 

 Now, as soon as a sheep got into it, you could tell where he stood. 



Now, when you turn them out you may have some trouble about 

 iu'testinal parasites. That time comes along about the middle of 

 June. Then the ewes go out to grass with the lambs, and I tell 

 you it is a pretty sight to see those lambs run up and down the 

 fields, and play, and then run up to the ewe, and off again, as if 

 asking her to watch them at play. 



Make a place on the ground and spread a little corn meal there 

 for them, and one of the best things you can give them is coarse 

 salt that you buy, and then, of course, there is the mother's milk — 

 the best of all for them. 



The winter lamb business is conducted in the same way. Begin 

 early, and when the lambs weigh eighty pounds they may be sold. 

 I would not keep them any longer, because then the Western market 

 comes in and the prices go down. I would try to have them ready 

 for market in June and July. How are you going to do that? It 

 is easy if you have the alfalfa to raise them on. Then with the 

 returns from the lambs, and the old sheep left to fertilize the land, 

 our returns will come in, and the dollars will flow into our bank like 

 cherries. \ . h 



