60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



should have an abundance of early cut hay and rowen, and 

 their grain ration should be gradually increased to a pint and 

 a half or a quart, consisting of corn, oats, oil meal, cotton- 

 seed meal and bran in equal parts by measure, to be given in 

 two feeds, the prime object now being to produce as large a 

 flow of milk as possible. 



The lambs must have a pen into which they can go at all 

 times, and into which their dams cannot go. In this pen put 

 a little rack and a trough, and feed them the very best of 

 early cut, fine rowen and all the grain they will eat, which 

 will be a very small amount until they are a month old, and 

 will seldom exceed at any time a quart each per day. Their 

 grain should consist of one half old process oil meal and the 

 balance mostly cracked corn or corn meal, with a very little 

 cotton-seed meal ; there is nothing which they like better than 

 cotton-seed meal, but it should be fed sparingly. 



Have the troughs made in such a way as to prevent the 

 lambs from getting their feet into them, and if there is any 

 grain in them in the morning clean it out before putting 

 in more. Keep the lambs growing every day until ready 

 for market. If they get a setback they will never fully 

 recover from it. The aim should be to force them along just 

 as fast as possible, for the younger they can be made to weigh 

 sixty pounds (which is the standard) the better price they 

 will bring and the less it will cost to raise them, consequently 

 the greater the profit. 



One advantage in raising early lambs is that it afibrds a 

 way to dispose of old sheep, and any others which it is not 

 desirable to keep for breeding purposes. My practice is to 

 put all such sheep in a pen by themselves, and feed them all 

 the grain they will eat ; then let them go to market with 

 their lambs ; or, perhaps, a little later, they will usually 

 bring enough, with the wool on their backs, to buy the same 

 number of good young ewes after shearing. 



The most common way of disposing of early lambs, in our 

 section, is to sell them to dealers, who take them at the near- 

 est railroad station. 



Another way, practiced by a great many, is to send them 

 by a commission dealer. Probal)ly those who are near the 

 city markets can dispose of them to better advantage by sell- 

 ing direct to the butchers or marketmen. 



