IS39J 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



615 



This gentleman may be relied on as asafe adviser, 

 because he has had many years successful practice 

 in the rearing and keeping ol'sheep. His system 

 of browsing, we believe, is continued at the pres- 

 ent time. His letter contains valuable hints to 

 wool growers: 



Hqpkinton, N. H. Oct. 25. 1835. 



lifij dear sir.- — On the return of your uncle I was 

 told you wished to know my method of browsing 

 sheep. * * * As soon as tl>e ground 

 is covered with snow I browse my sheep daily, i 

 go to the woods and make one or more temporary 

 ■cribs by placing two |)oles parallel 18 or 24 inches 

 apart upon two handfuls of brush or billets of wood. 

 Between the poles I place or set my boughs ofhem- 

 lock-or hard pine — (probably spruce, fir, or cedar 

 will do as well) — thrus'ing the but ends into the 

 snow and having them lean the same way. I 

 extend my cribs till they well accomodate the 

 number of sheep I wish to feed. I then tread down 

 the snow about the cribs so that sheep can easily 

 pass by those that have reached the browse anil 

 are feeding. 1 then turn my flock to the cribs, and 

 my work is done. In the latter part of the winter, 

 when the snow is suiUciently hard to bear up the 

 sheep, I thrust the houghs, when cut off, into the 

 stitf snow, in rows without poles, but so close to- 

 gether as to prevent the sheep passing through 

 them. 



Three winters ago when I began to browse my 

 sheep, I cut my browse and threw it about at ran-^ 

 dom; but I soon found my sheep too nice to feed 

 in that slovenly manner. They would run over it 

 and leave it. I look the hint of arranging in the 

 way 1 have mentioned, Irom nature, lor I have ob- 

 served where broughs pendent from the trees were 

 sulFiciently low to be reached by the sheep, they 

 would go directly to them and let^.d more Ireely 

 than in any other way. Sheep are not pleased 

 with having their food touched even by the hand 

 of man. 



The advantage of browsing sheep is no longer 

 d'">ubted here. It ffives ihem exercise, (resh air and 

 green (bod during ihe whole winter. I drive my 

 sheep in docks of from fitiy to one hundred nearly 

 a mile every day, unless the weather is very teni- 

 pesluous, and they heed cold weather as muc'i as 

 the deer or moose that range about the While 

 JVJountains. 



A larmer in this to\i'n wintered about sevent}^- 

 five sheep wholly on browse aod.a gill of corn a 

 day to each, llis dock were not at the barn dur- 

 ing the winter, and they come out of the woods in 

 the spring in fine order. He was (brtunate with 

 his lambs that season, and the Ibllowing fall sold his 

 wethers to the butcher lor four dollars a head. 

 I believe he had a slight covering to protect his 

 sheep Irom storms. I give no gram of any kind to 

 my sheep, except (o my lambs the first vvinter, or 

 to a lew old ones that may he feeble; to these I 

 give at the rale oi" a quart daily to twenty-five. 

 To my breeding ewes I give half a gill a day for 

 three or lour weeks belijre they vean. I keep my 

 stalls dry and airy, and daily brush every straw 

 they leave from their ciibs. For the last three 

 winters I have wintered 274, 367. and 275, and 

 have lost but two during the three wmters. Aly 

 breeding ewes last winter numbered 127 — rpf which 

 seven proved barren. I had two lambs killed by 

 a ibx— two died by taking cold after castration- 



one horn being trod upon when very young, and 

 one came too feeble to live, and died — loss in all, 

 six. I have since disposed of five, and my lamba 

 now number 109; and a more plump, healthy and 

 beautilul flock I think cannot be jbund in'New 

 England. 



I have lately sold 68 of my old sheep, and my 

 whole flock now numbers 311. I have brought up 

 my flock mostlj' Irom Merino ewes, and they are 

 now li'om full blood Saxony to those made nearly 

 so by breeding from the finest Saxony bucks lor 

 nme years. My fleeces averaged 2 lbs. 6 oz. and 

 sold at 75 cenlsi My store sheep sell from 3 to 10 

 dollars a head. Yours, &c. 



Stephen Sibley. 



P. S. Since the foregoing article was put in 

 type, Mr. Barnard has exhibited at our office a 

 beautiful silver medal of the New York American 

 Institute with this inscription on one side : — 



'^jiiuardcd to Barnard and Sibley fur the best 

 American Wool, 1833.'"' 



The other side contains the arms of the state of 

 New York, surmounted with the words "■j^meri- 

 can Institute.'''' 



It is much to the credit of Messrs. Barnard and 

 Sibie}'-, and honorable to the granite state, that 

 these gendemen should have exceeded the wool- 

 growers of any other state in the quality of their 

 wool; that they should give to our stnte the name 

 of producing, at the extensive exhibition of the 

 New York American Institute — which has become 

 an Institute lor the whole United States — ^'■the best 

 American loool.''^ 



During the year 1837, Mr. Sibley disposed of 

 about one hundred and fifty of hisjfine wooled sheep 

 for exportation to Buenos Ayres in South Ameri- 

 ca, some of which were sold after their arrival as 

 high as seventy dollars each. These sheep were 

 about 7-8 Saxony blood, crossed on fine wooled 

 Merino: they were sold at a time of ijreat depres- 

 sion in the price of sheep in June, when the pros- 

 pect for wool was poor indeed. Mr. S. obtained 

 five and a half dollars lor the unsheared, and four 

 dollars each for the sheared sheep. His finest 

 wool that year was sold at fifty cents the pound. 



DEEP PLAKTIIVG. 



From tlie Boston Cultivator. 



A patron of ours iuHirmed us a few weeks since, 

 that while taking his (odder, he discovered a great 

 difl^erence in appearance between two pieces of 

 corn, which were planted at the same time, and in 

 the same kind of soil. The fodder on one piece of 

 iiround dried up so fast that he could scarcely get 

 through with stripping it before it was entirelj"" 

 burnt up, to use the common phrase. On going 

 to the other piece, he found ir green to the ground, 

 and in good pliirht lor siripping. He was struck 

 with the diflerence in the two lots of corn; and on 

 reflection recollected that on getting ready to plant 

 his corn in the sprino-, he ran a furrow with a lariiR 

 shovel or bar-share [>lou<ih. after which he followed 

 with a small plough called a bull-tongue, running 

 it pretty deep in the same furrow, till he sot per- 

 haps half over the [liece, when he concluded to 

 plant the balance in the single tlirrow; and dis- 



