22 SHEET? HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



keep forty sheep in good condition all the year round. The 

 " Pacific Rural Press," of March, 1878, describing a ranch 

 having seven thousand sheep, and other stock in proportion, 

 says that thirteen hundred acres, sown to alfalfa, were cut 

 last year five times, yielding about one and a half tons of 

 hay to the acre to each cutting. From 35,000 to 40,000 acres 

 in California were seeded with this clover in 1876. Its cul- 

 ture is regarded as the only hope for preserving the sheep 

 husbandry in the dryer portions of the State. It flourishes 

 admirably in Texas ; keeping green all winter, and affording 

 feed tQ all kinds of stock. In upper portions of Georgia, 

 the alfalfa does not keep green through the months of De- 

 cember and January, and is used only for seeding and hay. 

 It would probably keep green through the winter in the lower 

 parts of the State, and might be pastured. 



Turnips. An important feature of the climate of the 

 South is that the wool-grower of that region can adopt the 

 English practice of folding sheep on turnips. It is well 

 known that the first great step in the improvement of the 

 sheep husbandry of England was the introduction from Hol- 

 land, by William of Orange, of the turnip culture, at the end 

 of the seventeenth century. They were fed to sheep ; and 

 it was found that, by this system, the same land would sup- 

 port treble the number of sheep. Turnips and sheep form 

 the foundation of the English four-field system, and are 

 the basis of English agriculture. This system cannot be 

 adopted at the North, on account of the turnips freezing in 

 the ground. 



The folding system is especially fitted for the sandy lands 

 on the coast, both as the cheapest means of ameliorating them, 

 and because such soils are favorable to the growth of the 

 turnip. 



The mode of procedure is this: After turnips are grown 

 on land which has been suitably fertilized and cultivated, 

 say in December or January, a fold is made of hurdles or 

 a portable fence, enclosing as many turnips as the flock of 

 sheep will eat in twenty-four hours. One thousand sheep 

 will consume the turnips on an acre in that time ; one hun- 



