1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 59 



The manure made by sheep (especially those which are 

 fed grain), makes one of the very best fertilizers, producing 

 a rank growth of any crop, and being very lasting in its 

 effects. 



I will now make a few suggestions to those who are 

 engaged, or are about to engage in the early lamb business. 



In the first place, be sure to use nothing but the best of 

 pure bred rams, and as I have said before, my preference is 

 for the Southdown ; the best are the cheapest. To illustrate 

 this, I will relate something which came under my own 

 observation, A few years ago a man with whom I am well 

 acquainted, bought a flock of fifty sheep in the month of 

 November ; they dropped their lambs during the months of 

 December and January. He did not know what the sire 

 of these lambs was, as the sheep came from a distance ; but 

 they were not first-class, being long-legged, with thin back 

 and light quarters. The next year he used a Southdown 

 ram, and the lambs from these same ewes were no more like 

 those of the year before than a Durham calf is like a Jersey 

 for veal purposes, and when ready for market were worth 

 one dollar per head more. This may be an extreme case, 

 but it will illustrate the point. 



Feed your ewes a gill of grain a day, commencing when 

 they come to the barn, and if you wish to feed them 

 meadow hay and the like, give them a half pint or more. 



When yeaning time comes, you will have but little 

 trouble if your ewes have been well fed and cared for up to 

 this time. They will have an abundance of milk, and will 

 be almost certain to own and care for their lambs. It is 

 poor feed that makes ^oor dams. The lambs will be strong, 

 and in nineteen cases out of twenty, they will get up and 

 suck without assistance in ten or fifteen minutes from the 

 time they are dropped. 



Should a lamb in any way get badly chilled take him to a 

 warm room and give him half a teaspoonful of brandy with a 

 little milk and put him into a pail of quite warm water for 

 five minutes, then rub him dry and roll him in a hot blanket, 

 and when he has slept off the effects of his potations he will 

 be ready to take his rations in the natural way. 



When the lambs are about two weeks old their dams 



