188 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



ApRn. 



they do require to be fed regularly, and to be 

 kept dry, but not too much confined. 

 Iiambs. 



When your sheep commence lambing, — if in 

 February, March, or April, — then they require 

 great care, as by neglecting them then you lose 

 the profit on the flock for the year. When 

 the lambs are about three weeks old they will 

 commence eating a little meal sprinkled in a 

 trough, in a separate pen, with an opening too 

 small to admit their dams. I usually feed oil 

 meal. At first, they should be allowed but lit- 

 tle ; increase gradually until at twelve to fifteen 

 weeks old they will eat a quart of oats and 

 corn, or oil meal, each, per day, when they 

 will have attained sufficient weight and matu- 

 rity for the butchers, — weighing ten to twelve 

 lbs. per quarter, and will always sell readily 

 for the best price. They shoidd be all sold 

 and closed up certainly by July 4th. The 

 ewes should be sheared early — by June 1st — 

 and fattened after the lambs are taken off, and 

 sold early, at a good profit, before our mar- 

 kets are llooded with mutton and late lambs, — 

 thus closing the account within the year and 

 be ready to start again. 



Let your buck be a good one. Better pay 

 $50 for a good South Down buck than have 

 an ordinary one given you, if you have from 

 twenty-five to fifty ewes. When you get one 

 that is just right, keep him as long as he re- 

 mains just right. 



The above is a practical view of sheep hus- 

 bandly, as practiced by myself, with a part of 

 my sheep. I have sheep, however, that I do 

 not sell to the butchers until they are old. I 

 always raise a few of my best thoroughbred 

 South Down ewe lambs. 



Shearing. 



This should always be done early, say the 

 last of May or the first of June. It is better 

 to shear early and house the sheep a few 

 nights, especially if they are ticky, than to let 

 them carry the fleece too late. Shearing 

 should always be done by a workman, — by a 

 man who understands his business, especially 

 if the sheep are intended for exhibition. 



Salting. 



Sheep should have free access to salt, mixed 

 with one part sulphur to three of salt at all 

 times, both winter and summer. I am, of 

 course, referring to sheep kept back in the 

 country, away from the salt water and salt hay. 

 Sulphur with the salt has a tendency to keep 

 sheep free from ticks, and healthy. 

 South Downs. 



For raising lambs for market, and for mut- 

 ton sheep generally, I prefer the South Downs 

 and their crosses to any other breed. I be- 

 lieve them to be the best for that purpose, 

 and will pay the best for feed consumed. 

 They are a (juiet breed, and the ewes are 

 good nurses and great milkers. Aside from 

 this, they are, in my opinion, decidedly the 

 handsomest breed in the world. For a defi- 



nite description of South Downs and other 

 breeds, and for the general management, of 

 sheep, I refer all who may read this to "The 

 Practical Shepherd," by H. S. Randall. This 

 is a book that every man who keeps ten or 

 more sheep should possess, and should look 

 at every month in the year. 



I purpose giving you my views on stall 

 feeding, &c., but will defer it now for fear 

 of spinning my yarn too long. 



Pomfret, Conn.. Jan. 21, 1868. 



THE KOBIN. 



We have been requested to publish the fol- 

 lowing by one of our subscribers, who says the 

 robins last year took almost his entire crop of 

 Honey and Black Heart cherries, some four or 

 five bushels, a large share of his strawberries 

 and peas, and injured his Bartlett pears. The 

 article is an extract from the report of E. W. 

 Lincoln, Secretary of the Worcester County, 

 Mass., Horticultural Society. After referring 

 to the recent assertion of a naturalist, that the 

 robin has got his bad reputation among fruit 

 growers because his destruction of insects is 

 carried on so early in the morning, the writer 

 says : — 



"He has beheld the very finest specimens 

 of the strawberry and raspberrj% in the de- 

 velopment and exhibition of which he antici- 

 pated more pleasure than from their consump- 

 tion, disappear down the instatiate maw of 

 these statutory pets. Quite recently, before 

 sunrise, when they ought to have been dili- 

 gently occupied in works of matutinal useful- 

 ness, he has startled them, in the great flocks 

 into which they gather before migration, from 

 his Bartlett pears, where they had been pre- 

 senting their bills and impressing their private 

 stamp without Federal or proprietary license. 

 But he prefers rather to rely upon the evi- 

 dence of His Excellency the Governor, the 

 commander-in-chief of an army and navy that 

 yet was inadequate to save his pears ; upon 

 the testimony of ex-Gov. Lincoln, whose 

 strawberries were sedulously tended, and 

 when ripening were summarily stripped ; upon 

 Messrs. John C Ripley, (icorge Jaques, O. 

 B. Hadwen and J. Henry Hill, gentlemen 

 deservedly high in your confidence and in that 

 of the public, who all concur in the opinion 

 that the robin is an incorrigible thief, and an 

 unmitigated nuisance. Gentlemen are they, 

 also, of refined sensibilities, to whom the song 

 of birds is as joyous as to those whose exquis- 

 ite tenderness is wounded by the proposed 

 outlawry of a single variety of the leathered 

 race. Members of this society are constantly 

 testinf^ new discoveries in pomology, as much 

 for the public benefit as for their private 

 enjoyment. Their labor will be utterly nuga- 

 tory, if ita fruit is to be subject to legalized 



I 



