SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 339 



simply, for a perfectly healthy animal, I confess I have no confidence in its 

 utility. 



Water. — Water is not indispensable in the summer pastures, the dews 

 and the succulence of the feed answering as a substitute. But my impres- 

 sion is decided that free access to water is advantageous to sheep, particu- 

 larly to those having lambs ; and I should consider it a matter of import- 

 ance on a sheep farm, to arrange the pastures, if practicable, so as to 

 bring water into each of them. 



Shade. — No one who has observed with what eagerness sheep seek 

 shade in hot weather, and how they pant and apparently suffer when a hot 

 sun is pouring down on their nearly naked bodies, will doubt that, both as 

 a matter of humanity and utility, they should be provided, during the hot 

 summer months, with a better shelter than that afforded by a common rail 

 fence. Forest-trees are the most natural and best shades, and it is as con- 

 trary to utility as it is to good taste to strip them entirely from the sheep- 

 walks. A strip of stone-wall or close board fence on the south and west 

 sides of the pasture, will form a passable substitute for trees. But in the 

 absence of all these, and of buildings of any kind, a shade can be cheaply 

 constructed of poles and brush, in the same manner as the sheds of the 

 same materials for winter shelter, which will be described in my next Letter. 



Weaning Lambs. — Lambs should be weaned at four months old. It is 

 better for them, and much better for their dams. The lambs when taken 

 away should be put for several days in a field distant from the ewes, that 

 they may not hear each other's bleatings. The lambs when in hearing of 

 their dams, continue restless much longer, and they make constant and 

 frequently successful efforts to crawl through the fences which separate 

 them. One or two tame old ewes are turned into the field with them to 

 teach them to come at the call, find salt when thrown to them, and eat 

 grain, &c., out of troughs when winter approaches. 



The lambs when weaned should be put on the freshest and tenderest 

 feed. I have usually reserved for mine the gi'ass and clover sown, the pre- 

 ceding spring, on the grain fields which were seeded down. 



The dams, on the contrary, should be put for a fortnight on short, dry 

 feed, to stop the flow of milk. They should be looked to, once or twice, 

 and should the bags of any be found much distended, the milk should be 

 drawn and the bag washed for a little time in cold water. But on short 

 feed, they rarely give much trouble in this particular. Wlien properly 

 dried off", they should be put on good feed to recruit, and get in condition 

 for winter. 



Fall Feeding. — In the North, the grass often gets very short by the 

 10th or 15th of November, and it has lost much of its nutritiousness from 

 repeated freezing and thawing. At this time, though no snow has yet 

 fallen, it is best to give the sheep a light daily foddeiing of bright hay — 

 or a few oats in the bundle. Given thus for the ten or twelve days which 

 precede the covering of the ground by snow, fodder pays for itself as well 

 as at any other time during the year. I have usually fed oats in the bun- 

 dle, or threshed oats, (about a gill to the head,) in the feeding-troughs, 

 carried to the fields for that purpose. 



The Crook. — This implement has been several times alluded to as a 

 convenient one for catching sheep. It is made in the form exhibited iu 



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