FORAGE CROPS FOR SHEEP. 231 



favorable season it will be ready to pasture in thirty days. 

 Both crops, however, possess more feeding value as they 

 approach maturity. Rape can very often be sown to good 

 advantage with oats. At the Iowa station (1889) rape so 

 sown one pound rape and six pecks of oats per acre gave 

 a yield of eighteen tons per acre besides sixty bushels of 

 oats per acre. The rape interfered but slightly in harvesting 

 the oats, and afterwards came on and made the above ex- 

 cellent yield. 



Besides rape and sorghum, two of the most valuable forage 

 crops we have for sheep are legumes that can be spring 

 or summer sown to good advantage. These are cow peas 

 and soja beans. They may be sown alone or in corn, and 

 furnish the very choicest of feed. Best results are usually 

 obtained by sowing in drills, twenty-four inches apart, and 

 cultivating. The peas or beans should be dropped from 

 three to four inches apart in the drills. If sown broadcast, 

 from three pecks to one bushel of seed should be used per 

 acre on rich soil. Neither soy beans nor cow peas mature 

 with certainty in this state, and seed must usually be ob- 

 tained from a distance. If sown alone they should be sown 

 in May as soon as the ground warms up well. If sown in 

 corn it will necessarily be at the last cultivating, and the 

 cow peas are preferable to the soy beans for this purpose. 

 In early corn, which is laid by in June, the peas will make a 

 vigorous growth and will be in good shape to turn lambs 

 on in the latter part of August. 



The foregoing list gives a succession of forage crops, all 

 desirable for sheep pasturage, from early in May until well 

 into the frost season in the fall, and sheep carried on such 

 pasture will remain free from stomach worms, liver flukes 

 and other intestinal parasites which infest only pastures that 

 are grazed for two or more consecutive years. 



Other crops, such as oats and peas, sweet corn, etc., may 

 also be grown, but the ones mentioned are all crops that 

 have proved their worth, and no farmer need hesitate to 

 sow them. 



In growing any forage crop, the most gains from a mini- 

 mum amount of land is secured when hurdles are used. These 

 are made of ordinary fencing material, sixteen feet long. 

 Each panel has three boards, held together by three or four 

 uprights. Two of these are attached by hinges to a third 

 in such a way that the three will fold together. The result 



