1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 77 



sheep kept in the town. In towns where there are only a 

 few sheep kept, according to the statistics, they will surely 

 become food for the dogs ; but in a town where there is a 

 considerable number of sheep kept, there is less trouble. I 

 have always been a keeper of sheep, and my neighbors own 

 sheep, and always have. Well, I have had one or two 

 wholesale raids into my flock within my memory ; but the 

 last six, eight or ten years I have not lost a sheep by dogs. 

 Some of my neighbors have lost some. I think that the 

 formers shelter themselves (they are lazy and procrastinating 

 in their habits in regard to putting up their fences) under 

 this belief that it is dogs that prevent them from keeping the 

 sheep. I believe if they will rouse themselves to the im- 

 portance of saving these old pastures, and making them 

 worth something for keeping other stock in (and I consider 

 the sheep as helps in that direction) , and will put the fences 

 in condition so that they can keep the sheep where they 

 ought to be kept, and not starve them on these old pastures, 

 that they will overcome this difficulty, and we shall hear less 

 complaint that it is the dogs. But how can you expect, when 

 nine men out of ten in the community own dogs, and only 

 one man in fifty, or a hundred, owns sheep, that we can get 

 these dog owners to tax themselves any more for the benefit 

 of the sheep owner than they are taxing themselves now? 

 I think we had better hold on to what we have in that direc- 

 tion than to risk losing what we have by attempting to get 

 more. There have been a great many points brought up 

 here of exceeding interest to me, and well spoken of. The 

 speaker recommended cotton-seed meal as a food for sheep. 

 I have had a little suspicion in regard to the effects of it 

 upon a flock of ewes, and still I have no [)Ositive facts, you 

 may say, to condemn the article ; but, after feeding this 

 more freely than I ever did before, I had the worst luck with 

 lambs the succeeding springs, — fine lambs, at two weeks old, 

 suddenly dropi)ing ofl' and dying without any provocation at 

 all. I attributed it to having fed them with cotton-seed 

 meal, and I have refrained from using it since. I consider 

 it a very strong, stimulating food for sheep or milch cows, 

 and in the case of such cows there is danger in using; it. It 

 is the most dangerous feed our hired men feed on the farm, 



