1010 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



ewes in season will cluster about him, when they can be caught 

 and penned separate, and the ram admitted at the end of a strap. 

 After about three services, runninir half an hour, he should be 

 tied up and removed and kept quiet two or three hours. There 

 are other plans which will economize time, but they are not so 

 business-like. 



Theoretically, rams should have grain rich in albuminoids, 

 as wheat or oats; but I have found them do as well on shelled 

 corn as any thing two medium ears per day. With his hay 

 he should have sliced pumpkin or roots or sweet-corn fodder cut 

 up green. Water and salt daily. Through the winter he may 

 be kept tied up with the leather strap in a stall without injury, 

 or the monotony of his imprisonment may be relieved by an 

 occasional promenade in a tight yard. If there are two, and 

 they fight, cut off a section of a boot-leg, slip it on his head, and 

 tie it to the base of his horns. Slit it on the under side, and 

 tie it together loose enough so that he can see down along 

 his nose. 



It is advisable to condemn ewes for certain faults in the 

 spring, and indicate it by a durable mark ; but most farmers 

 delay the main business of drafting until fall. A "pony sheep" 

 is generally a good breeder. But when one is seen with hind- 

 quarters conspicuously heavier than the fore, choose her; she is 

 of good promise, whether low and stocky or rangy. Marks ought 

 to be affixed to the short-stapled light shearers in the spring. 

 Reject rigorously the leggy, the flat-ribbed, the long-necked, and 

 the sharp-rumped, with the tail set on low. They will produce 

 unhandsome lambs, which will be certain to turn up when the 

 flock is paraded for inspection. 



There are principles, or, rather, an intuition, in selecting and 

 breeding which can not be imparted by one person to another 

 except by long communication, and then only more or less super- 

 ficially. It is a gift of nature. The ordinary breeder can not 

 expect to accomplish more than is attempted by the writer of 

 these lines to keep a standard, an ideal, and breed straight 

 toward it continually. If only one ram is employed, and he is 

 of a marked prepotency, transmitting his qualities strongly to 



