SIXTH ANNUAL TEAR BOOK — PART I. 45 



a thorough dipping. Then we put them in a barn and let them have 

 alfalfa hay for 30 days; they just gently swelled, you know. By that 

 time they got strong enough to feed them with corn out of the silo a 

 little while, maybe a month. After that we began breaking up corn in 

 two or three pieces and putting maybe one ear to a trough; and in 

 maybe two or three days two ears to a trough; we just gradually 

 increased that feed. The trouble is, by increasing too fast, they get 

 dyspepsia and inflation of the stomach. By this gradual increase in 

 grain, we don't lose any at all. I went to South Carolina three weeks 

 ago, and my brother remarked when I came back, that we used to, 

 when I first began feeding lambs lose six or seven per cent, because 

 we used the self-feeders and they would gorge themselves. We just so 

 gradually increase that corn, until finally, along about New Years day, 

 a little later than that, they get pretty near all they want — no it 

 would be nearly the 1st of February until we finally get them to the 

 point where they can hardly eat three grains more. By the way, we 

 do the same with alfalfa and hay; we want to find it all eaten up. 

 Now, we dry and cure it. Although it rained 33 days during one 

 month we dried and cured our alfalfa. We found, under fair con- 

 ditions, that a long feed pays best— a very gradual increase up to the 

 ultimate point; you don't lose so many. 



We shear them along the latter part of March; maybe the last 

 week in March. We shear them by hand; we don't use shearing 

 machines; we shear them and after that we keep them a few weeks 

 more, and then we sell them to Buffalo. You know, they always look 

 for our lambs as the best in the market, and they always give us a- 

 little bit more than the market. 



I have been through some trying and discouraging times. There 

 were years that I made so many blunders, and hung so many hides on 

 the fence and did so many things I ought not to have done, that my 

 brother and I would get on the sunny side of the barn and talk 

 things over, and then we would decide that we could not afford to quit, 

 and we stayed right by it, year after year. 



Well, we fed the lambs regularly every morning and evening; they 

 looked for it; always at the same time. We kept water before them 

 always, and clean enough to drink. We gave them salt; all the salt 

 they wanted. We either took a salt, barrel and sawed it in two, or 

 else gave them rock salt; I don't know as it makes any difference 

 which it is. Then every nice day we took the manure spreaders and 

 took the manure out into the field. I pay my men $1.25, and because 

 they can get more in harvest, we pay them by the bushel for husking 

 corn; and then because some day we couldn't husk, I paid them the 

 same thing. 



You know, I am going to tell you now why I like sheep and lamb 

 feeding. Friends, when I came home from the west, and took hold of 

 that old farm at home, it was a discouraging proposition. My father 

 took down his account book and he showed me what hay he sold and 

 wheat, and it all footed up a little less than $700. I had given up a 



