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The lambs should be docked (tails cut off) when a few days old. It 

 improves the appearance of the sheep, and prevents much trouble when 

 purging takes place, which, if allowed to remain, in warm weather will 

 be blown by the fly and filled with maggots, which, if neglected, will 

 spread over the body of the sheep, resulting in death. 



I mark my lambs when a year old, at shearing time, using Dana's 

 patent label, by the numbers. I can keep their ages and their breeding 

 correctly. 



TICKS. 



If annoyed with sheep ticks (about two weeks after shearing, the ticks 

 will all leave the older sheep and go to the lambs), by dipping the lamb 

 in a solution prepared of Buchan's carbolic sheep dip, you destroy not 

 only the tick but the eggs. 



BUTCHERING. 



Many persons do not eat mutton because of the peculiar sheepy odor 

 and taste sometimes found in the mutton, and attribute it as being due to 

 the contact of the wool with the meat. This is a mistake. The true 

 cause of this taste or odor lies in the delay of disemboweling the carcaps. 

 It' the intestines are allowed to remain until the pelt is removed, the 

 gasses emitted from them are disseminated through the flesh, which causes 

 the objectionable taste or odor. Disembowel the carcass at once, before the 

 pelt is removed. Or, as soon as the throat of the animal is cut, having it 

 tied up by the hind feet with its head hanging down, cut a hole between 

 the hind quarters, and fill the body at once with cold ivater; then take the pelt- 

 off at your leisure, and remove the entrails, and you will have none of 

 that disagreeable odor. 



HOW TO MAKE WOOL UNIFORM. 



One thing of which I thought, but it escaped me at the proper time, is 

 this: The sheep should be kept in uniform condition to produce good 

 wool. If the condition of the sheep is kept uniform, the wool will be uni- 

 form. If the sheep are allowed to grow poor and then suddenly fatted, 

 or vice versa, the staple of the wool will change in the same way. With 

 combing wool, it injures it materially, as where the weak places are it 

 gives way, destroying its value as combing wool. Fat sheep make fat 

 wool. Wool from sheep kept in good, uniform condition, will be uniform 

 throughout, and the yield from the same sheep greater, longer, stronger 

 and heavier, having more yolk. 



In writing, I endeavored to give you my idea, and the reasons for it, of 

 the best sheep for Tennessee, as a whole, and at the same time utilize the 

 natives, which are now comparatively worthless. There are breeders of 

 the Downs Southdowns, Shropshiredowns, Oxfordshiredowns, etc., etc. 

 For a medium wool and high-flavored mutton, these sheep are exceed- 



