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value of the barren grasses, but we do know that sheep 

 thrive on them finely, and come down into the farms in the 

 beginning of winter thoroughly fat. The "Beggar's- lice" 

 (Cynoglossum Morrisonii) that grows in unparalleled luxu- 

 riance all over the barrens and mountain lands of our State 

 will keep sheep in fine order after the ripening of its seeds, 

 but from the peculiar nature of those seeds they will ruin 

 the fleece, no machinery being sufficient to take them out 

 clean when once matted in the wool. The sheep themselves 

 will eat many of them off each other's backs, but cannot 

 get them out clean. 



The value of the natural pastures can never be overesti- 

 mated, and it only requires a sufficient number of attend- 

 ants to sustain, until far in the cold weather, any number of 

 sheep. A man with a couple of well trained dogs will 

 easily attend one thousand sheep. The time will come, and 

 at no distant day, when the whole range of our mountains 

 will be flecked over with innumerable herds of sheep and 

 cattle, thus turning all this great waste into substantial 

 wealth. The only drawback to sheep- raising on the Cum- 

 berland Mountains, so far as the writer knows, is the pres- 

 ence of the calycanthus, the seeds of which, when eaten by 

 sheep, are fatal. Fortunately these shrubs are confined to 

 a few localities. 



A great and fatal error into which many sheep masters 

 fall, is overstocking. Not only are the sheep deprived of 

 a sufficiency of food, but their stomachs become filled with 

 sancjand gravel by .close nipping. This induces a thriftless 

 condition, which ultimately ends in disease and death. They 

 will also soon wear out their teeth, so that at four years old 

 they no longer have teeth able to masticate their food. 



Understocking is almost equally objectionable, as the 

 grass will become hard and woody and lose its nutrient 

 character. A just medium is hard to establish, but expe- 

 rience is the best teacher, and a farmer will soon be able to 

 put on it just what stock as will keep it young and tender 



