98 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



This trouble can be prevented rather than cured. We use the 

 hurdles, a system carried on almost exclusively in Great Britain, 

 with excellent results. By using this method you have your lambs 

 on fresh feed every day. They do not follow the ewes and become 

 infested. If you do not use hurdles, keep your lambs on fresh 

 pasture — clover if possible — and be prepared for the dry season. 

 This season is when the rape crop is very important. Rape comes 

 up in great wealth, and will make mutton for nothing. You can 

 sow it in your corn fields at the last cultivation ; this will be ready 

 by the first of September or whenever your corn is harvested. Per- 

 haps the best method for an Iowa farmer to follow would be to 

 plow up a piece of sod after haying and sow rape. Don't miss 

 sowing rape ; it is your cheapest and best fall feed. 



Wean your lambs and keep them doing well; put them on your 

 best clover pasture. Don 't have them follow older sheep that might 

 be infected with disease. 



One thing I wish to speak of and that is the breeding of the 

 flock. Good breeders all recognize the value of a sire in building 

 up a herd or flock. Our western breeders are willing to buy a 

 carload of good rams (pure bred) with breeding that will tell 

 on their flocks, rather than use a scrub sire at one-fourth the 

 cost. People speak of the sire as half the flock. This is true 

 when both sire and dam are equally well bred; pure bred and 

 strongly bred, so they will have an equal influence on the offspring. 

 But when one side is scrub or grade, the saying is not true, and 

 from this source the average farmer must start his herd, or flock. 

 If the female side of the flock is scrub, then the pure bred sire 

 becomes all the flock, so far as blood lines of improvement are 

 concerned. This is considering the first cross. 



In the second cross, he becomes a little less than all, and 

 as the grade of the flock rises, the sire becomes less and less, 

 until when graded up to the practical standard of pure bred, then 

 your sire gets to be half of the flock. Therefore, the selection of 

 the sire is of the greatest importance to the flock. Select accord- 

 ing to your demand, but, by all means select one with great 

 constitutional vigor and as near correct mutton conformation as 

 possible, and then get breed type. I should say first of all, select 

 for mutton conformation and breeding. 



The care of the sire at the breeding season is important. See 

 that he is not going back in condition while in service. 



In conclusion I might say a little more as to feed. We in 

 Wisconsin and the people in the middle West are troubled with the 



