SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I, 4o 



Because the first grass has nothing but water, no nutriment, and by 

 eating that they wont eat anything else. All the cattle I used to lose 

 died when the green grass came; we never lost any in the winter time, 

 but when the green grass came the cattle died from starvation. That 

 is the principle we go on, shutting the lambs and ewes up when the 

 green grass comes. 



As to shipping, in March and April I wouldn't ship at all, because 

 the eastern market don't want them. I would feed ear corn and grass 

 the latter part of April, and in June I would ship out every one that 

 I had at an average of 80 pounds. This early maturity comes before 

 the western rancher can get into the market. Then you know when 

 the terrors of July and August come, you haven't any lambs at all, 

 except the pure bred that are kept. All the rest have come and gone 

 and I have got my money for them, and way above what I would 

 get if I kept them until the western rancher got in. Some of them 

 you must keep in the summer, and now there is trouble for any 

 man who tries to raise sheep on eastern farms. Anywhere in the 

 corn belt that trouble comes, the parasite question, the worms getting 

 into the sheep. There is absolutely no spot that is exempt from this 

 trouble. I found the neighbors had them; then we thought may be 

 they didn't go west of the Mississippi River; now we find them in 

 Iowa and in Dakota. I found that Robert Taylor had to go out of 

 keeping sheep in Nebraska. I couldn't talk intelligently to you about 

 keeping sheep without taking time. Now, on our old farm, we don't 

 lose one a year and we don't give any medicine hardly. It is all in 

 the management. I want to talk about proper management in getting 

 rid of these worms. In the first place, you know these worms are 

 carried over in the bodies of these mothe-rs. In the spring time the 

 mother deposits the germs on the grass with her droppings. These 

 little germs in some way get on the grass, and the little lamb takes it 

 in, and you know they will stick inside of the lamb better than the 

 mother. The mother may look in perfect health, yet she may have 

 sufficient germs to infect that lamb. Now, the remedy. Change those 

 sheep from one pasture to another as much as you can, and then let 

 the germs perish on the grass before you take them back. That is a 

 sort of guess-work; you don't know how long to wait. We know that 

 helps. Another remedy is the sowing of crops. Where they use the 

 lands for grass or oats, they rarely become infected. I never knew any 

 infection from alfalfa; they don't bite so close to the ground. On the 

 blue grass pastures, you will find them almost deadly. 



Now, have the lambs born early; we are able to wean them sooner 

 and we take the ram lambs away; they have to be put on the fresh 

 grass where no old sheep have been. So can we the ewe lambs, and 

 yet they must be with their mothers. We don't often wean ewe lambs 

 until their mothers dry up. We give them the freest reign we can 

 while the ewe lambs are with them. 



I went across the ocean to discover how to fight the parasite. I 

 found, where the young lambs are given extra feed, they were more 



