CARE AND FEED OF SHEEP. 361 



and they had three lambs in the Spring. I next bought a thor- 

 ough-bred Cotswold buck. Last Spring I sheared from a ewe 

 lamb ten pounds of nice wool about nine inches in length. I 

 have at the present time sixteen head of half-breeds, which 

 will, I think, shear next Spring on an average, nine pounds. 

 Some of them are now larger than the old ewes. For mutton 

 and wool I think the cross I am making, for this country, unex- 

 celled by any other. My sheep all appear to be healthy. Occa- 

 sionally in the Summer, after much rain has fallen, they have a 

 cough and a running at the nose, but they soon recover. I 

 have lost but three in three years, and two of them died of old 

 age. The other died from an overflow of the gall, as it was 

 too fat. 



The greatest foe to sheep here are the dogs. While every 

 farmer has from one to six dogs, there are but three in a township 

 four and a half miles wide by seven miles long, who keep any 

 sheep. So we have to watch all those dogs, and are obliged to 

 shut our sheep up nights in a lot which is twelve rails high. I 

 have open sheds for them to run under as they please, and the 

 woods afford pasture for their range in Summer. After wheat 

 is harvested I turn them in on the stubble, where they run from 

 two to three months. I am now trying to get my pasture 

 seeded to blue grass, but have not as yet made much of a 

 start in that direction. 



CAEE AND FEED OF SHEEP. 



In the Winter I feed corn fodder with the corn on, once a 

 day, and provide all the corn fodder they can eat at night. I 

 sometimes feed a few sheaf oats, and they have straw to eat 

 when they want it, also have access to water. My lambs begin 

 to come about the first of February. I separate the young 

 lambs and ewes till they get strong. I feed each ewe bran 

 twice a day, with oats added, and they seem to grow steadily, 

 and by the time that grass begins to appear, they are large 

 enough to turn out and go to eating. By the next Winter they 

 go through like an old sheep. I have now thirty-nine in my 

 flock. I intend keeping about fifty ewes, and shall sell off all 



