No. 4.] SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 145 



those sheep. I had one or two ewes with lambs by their 

 side in a small pen, and I found that, on the average, they 

 would drink between five and six quarts of water a day. 



With regard to keeping mutton sheep, there has always 

 been an idea, I think, in this part of the country, that it was 

 only the Merino that would stand running in large flocks, 

 and when I first began I was told that I could not keep 

 more than twenty or thirty together; but I gradually 

 increased until I have kept a flock as large as four hundred 

 together in a summer pasture, feeding them grain. To top- 

 dress my pasture and kill the undergrowth, I kept the pas- 

 ture overstocked. I have kept them from early in May until 

 October on the same feeding ground, the same flock together, 

 and with no more disease than you would naturally expect 

 from hurdling as I do at night. I have adopted that plan 

 with pastures which were becoming run out, grown up to 

 bushes and covered with moss. I hurdle my sheep at night 

 for two reasons. One is to top-dress the part of the pasture 

 which needs it most, and, secondly, as furnishing protection 

 against dogs. I never have had a dog jump over a hurdle. 



Question. What do you build your hurdle with ? 



The Chairman. Merely take an eight-foot section of an 

 ordinary picket fence, and two inches from the end of the 

 two-by-three stick to which your pickets are nailed bore a 

 hole, then put your sections together like an old Virginia 

 rail fence, and where the holes come above one another put 

 in a piece of bent iron or a five-inch spike, and your fence is 

 very strong and very easily moved. 



Mr. Avery also said that sheep needed constant care, and 

 they do. The labor is very light. There is very little hard 

 labor in looking after sheep ; but it is that very looking after, 

 the master's eye, that covers what is called generally " good 

 luck." There is no such thing as good luck. It is good care ; 

 and in no branch of farming that I know of does good 

 care go further than in looking after a flock of sheep. One 

 trouble that 1 have had in hurdling as closely as I do, three 

 or four hundred in a small hurdle, is that they get very foul 

 in the feet, and are apt to get foot-rot. The master's eye, 

 if he exercises good care, sees when they are let out of the 

 hurdles in the morning that there is a sheep or lamb affected 



