28 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



The boy reasoned : ' i Our practices are wrong. We 

 sell off timothy hay and wheat, and thus load by 

 load we sell away the fertility of the farm, and what 

 we do feed is largely wasted, as we do not get the 

 manure. Now if ever we build this farm up we 

 must feed on the land the crops that we grow upon 

 the land. And if we make any money in feeding 

 animals we must feed younger animals than we 

 have been feeding. We must feed some sort of 

 babies. Now what shall it be?/' 



Then he thought of the lamb. "Why, here is the 

 lamb," he said. "He is a baby, a gentle little fellow. 

 One can put him in the barn, can feed him there in- 

 shelter. His manure will all be saved in good order 

 and can go direct to the fields with no wastage, and 

 from the feed given him one ought to make good 

 gain and thus make money. ' ' He had already a little 

 flock of ewes which were his pets and his darlings. 

 To them he added now a little bunch of 200 feeding 

 lambs, building a shed to hold them. As he had no 

 money only what he borrowed, he bought the small- 

 est and cheapest lambs that he could find. They 

 were natives, fairly healthy, and weighed 55 Ibs. 

 when he put them in the sheds in November. He 

 had carefully dipped them in a half barrel, and had 

 himself as thoroughly dipped as the lambs, so they 

 werje free from ticks. All winter he fed them care- 

 fully, every feed with his own hands. Not knowing 

 anything about feeding lambs, he had written to 

 Prof. E. W. Stewart to get his advice as to how 

 they ought to be fed, and he had told him how to 



