EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



545 



The coarse wooled breeds do not do their best in this climate as their 

 fleeces are too open. The Southdown lambs do not attain the heavy 

 weight that lambs of other Down breeds do, during the grazing season, 

 and they also shear light. The Kambouillets shear heavier than the 

 other breeds mentioned and their wool usually commands a higher price. 

 They are especially well adapted for the larger flocks. 



The small farm flocks usually pay best when they carry largely the 

 Hami^shire, the Shropshire or Oxford breeding. Some of the advantages 

 in favor of sheep raising in the Upper Peninsula are: they assist in 

 land clearing; they require the minimum amount of labor; they make 

 good use of rough feeds; they require only cheaply constructed shelter; 

 and they give a crop of wool in the spring, a crop of lambs in the fall 

 and are naturally well adapted to this northern country. 



Fig. 31. Sheep are an effective means of aiding in land clearing work. Twenty sheep 

 are equal to the labor of one man in brushing and clearing up the second growth on 

 cut-over lands being prepared for breaking. 



SUMMER AND FALL CARE. 



Sheep do better on short and fine grasses than on coarse or over- 

 grown feed. They relish a great variety of weeds and brush and are of 

 great value in cleaning fields after harvesting and in killing low brush 

 and weeds in cut-over lands. New farm settlers will find it a good 

 practice with at least a part of their clearing operations on cut-over 

 lands, to first cut and burn the larger brush, sow grass seed, then use 

 the land for pasture for two or three years, while the roots are rotting. 

 The sheep not only keep the green growth down, but bring in a profit to 

 their owner. 



Sheep need free access to salt all the time, and they must be kept 

 away from bog-holes, containing stagnant water during warm weather. 

 A change of pasture occasionally is very beneficial. Sheep will do much 

 better on a certain area of pasture if it is divided into two or three parts, 

 and the sheep changed every two weeks. ♦ 



No grain is necessary during the pasture season. The native grasses 

 alone will carry a ewe with her lamb through the season so that both 

 can go to the market, fat, in the fall, even when run in comparatively 

 large bands. This has been demonstrated on several large sheep farms 



