256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



going directly into the market, because if you cut off feeding 

 sugar you will kill them. If you ever take the sugar away 

 they will die. It is unsafe except where the lambs are going 

 to be sent to market. The sugar can be purchased of most any 

 grocer. 



Now there is another thing that we want to do. Every 

 sheep should be docked. I know that that sounds cruel to a 

 great many of you, but it can be done without cruelty to the 

 sheep, and it is a great advantage. What is the use of the 

 great tail that some sheep have anyway? I never could see. 

 I have asked some scientific investigators, and I am thoroughly 

 convinced that it costs a great deal more to raise a pound of 

 bone than it does a pound of meat per sheep. I am going to 

 hazard a guess that it costs ten times as much to grow a pound 

 of bone as it does to grow a pound of meat. Now how shall 

 we dock them ? There is where the danger lies. I have seen 

 some of them, after I had cut the tails off, bleed to death be- 

 cause I could not stop it. I have corded their tails and have 

 done everything to stop it. I have corded the tails for hours 

 before I cut them off. With an animal of a high nervous or- 

 ganization, ^he whole nervous system will suffer, but with a 

 sheep it is a little different, and they will stand almost any- 

 thing, but with high bred, fleshy, nervous lambs they will not 

 stand any such abuse. I have corded their tails, and I have seen 

 times, my friends, when I felt so badly that I have gone off to 

 the house out of sight when I have seen the struggle and pain 

 and bleeding that came from cording their tails. I have lain 

 awake at night, more than once, just before the time came 

 when I knew I had to cut those lambs' tails off. I have 

 even let lambs go because I had not the pluck to go and do 

 it. But I have found another way. There was somebody 

 that made what they called a docking bench. When I saw it 

 I thought I would rather like it. I sat and looked at it. I 

 tried it, and' came to the conclusion that the one way in the 

 world that was safe to the man and humane to the sheep was 

 to burn their tails off. I have taken the tails off from fifty 

 lambs in that way, and have them run right away and go to 

 playing, run right off and go to eating. There was not a lamb 

 in the lot that knew until he came to suck his mother the next 

 time that he had not got anything to wiggle. It takes them off 

 at just the right place, at about an inch from the end. 



