SHEEP, SWINE, AND OTHER DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 431 



into these for the night. If covered with brush they will be a 

 protection from the storm. We can see how a half dozen such 

 pens would be convenient in numberless cases, paying iheir 

 cost every season. The lack of water is the great objection to 

 prairie husbandry, and there is no use of locating a range unless 

 water is to be had the year around. Turnips sown broadcast 

 on the inverted sod will give green food in abundance. Indian 

 corn is the chief feed in addition to hay, and often almost wholly 

 substituted for it. Its cultivation on the prairie soils is easy and 

 cheap. One man with a pair of horses, planters, and cultivators 

 can take care of fifty acres of corn, which will often yield eighty 

 bushels per acre, and nearly double the fodder we get in the 

 Eastern States. It should be cut and shocked before frost, and 

 drawn to the sheep as wanted : two men with a team will 

 feed three thousand sheep. One acre of corn with the fodder 

 will feed twenty sheep through the winter. Wheat straw brined 

 will be eaten for the salt. This is the cheapesi way to furnish 

 salt, and the best way to dispose of wheat straw, much of which 

 is now wastefully burned. Washing, and shearing, and most 

 of the operations of sheep husbandry are the same under all 

 circumstances. Care and culling are desirable everywhere. 



Says Hon. Samuel P. Boardman, in regard to sheep husbandry 

 "on the range," as prairie husbandry is called: — "A man 

 should spot long legged and bad shaped sheep, broken mouthed 

 ind old sheep, light shearing sheep, bare bellied and thin 

 fleeced sheep ; ewes with spoilt or partially spoilt bags ; ewes 

 which are known to be poor nurses, and whose lambs, for a 

 year or two, are known to have been given to other ewes to 

 raise ; wethers which are three years old, and which shear so 

 light that the butcher had better have them ; and, if trying to 

 breed common, coarse sheep into fine wool, all the coarse, 

 hairy hipped sheep. No man will ever get a first rate, even 



