398 



SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



The great value of pea-haulm, as shown in the above Table, is worthy of 

 the particular notice of the Southern flock-raaster. Also that of millet 

 straw, another crop peculiarly congenial to the Southern States, provided 

 it can be cured so that sheep will eat it. Corn-stalks are not, unfortunate- 

 ly, included in the Table. According to Petri, 100 pounds of corn " straw," 

 (including stalks and leaves, I suppose,) contains but |- as much nutriment 

 as the same weight of " aromatic meadow hay," and not so much by i as 

 an equal weight of oat or pea straw, which he makes equivalent to each 

 other ! My opinion is that this by no means indicates the comparative 

 value of icell cured com-stalks. No analysis of them now occurs to me, 

 in any authority which I have on hand. Mr. Ellsworth, of the Patent Of- 

 fice, stated in the Cultivator in 1842, that the juice of coxxi-stalks, on 

 Beaume's Saccharometer, is equal in saccharine matter with that of the 

 cane in this country, five times greater than that of the Northern sugar- 

 maple, (Acer saccharimim,) and three times that of beet! The daily ex- 

 periments of our farmers demonstrate the absurdity of placing corn-stalks 

 below the value of the cei'eal straws. Cured green and bright they are a 

 highly valuable fodder, and are relished by all herbivorous animals. My 

 friend, James M. Ellis, Esq. of Onondaga, N. Y., one of the best managing 

 flock-masters of this State, has fed corn-stalks largely to his sheep for sev- 

 eral years and with decided succes. 



Effect of Food in the Production of Wool. — The fact has been be- 

 fore alluded to that well fed sheep produce more wool than poorly fed 

 ones. The question now arises — if the effect on the condition (flesh) of the 

 sheep is the same, will one kind of food produce more wool than another ? 

 No doctrine is more clearly recognized in Agricultural Chemistry, than 

 that animal tissues derive their chemical components from the same com- 

 ponents existing in their food.* The analyses of Liebig, Johnston, Scherer, 

 Playfair, Boeckmann, Mulder, &c., show that the chemical composition of 

 wool, hair, hoofs, nails, horns, feathers, lean meat, blood, cellular tissue, 

 nerves, &c. are nearly identical. The organic part of wool, according to 

 Johnston,t consists of carbon 50.65, hydrogen 7.03, nitrogen 17.71, oxy- 

 gen and sulphur 24.61. The inorganic constituents are small. When 

 burned, it leaves but 20 per cent of ash. The large quantity of nitro- 

 gen (17.71) contained in wool, shows that its production is increased by 

 highly azotized food. This is fully verified by the experiments made on 

 Saxon sheep, in Silesia, by Reaumur, whose Table I append. A striking 

 coiTCspondence will be found to exist between the amount of wool and the 

 amount of nitrogen in the food. 



TABLE 18. 



1000 poands of raw potatoes, with salt. 



1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 

 1000 



1000 



without salt 



raw mangel-wurzel 



pease 



wheat 



rye, with salt 



rye, without salt 



oats 



barley 



buckwheat 



good hay 



hay, with straw, without other 



fodder 



whisky, still-grains or wash. . . . 



461 



44 



38 



134 



155 



90 



83 



146 



136 



120 



58 



31 

 35 



8 



H 

 11 



\H 



141 

 101 

 12 



61 



4.1 



lOi 



12 51 



10 141 



51 



6 



41 6 



59 9 

 35 11 

 33 8 

 40 8 



60 1 

 33 8 

 12 14 



6 11 

 4 



Nitrogen 

 per rent, 

 in food. 



0.3C 

 0.36 

 0.21 

 3.83 

 2.09 

 2.00 

 2.00 

 1.70 

 1.90 

 2.10 

 1.15 



* For full information on ihiB whole subject, see Liebig's Animal Chemistry, Part I and II. 

 t See Johneton's Agricultural Chemistry— Lecture XVlII. Analyses of the homy tissues, by Scherer, will 

 be found in the Appendix to Liebig's Animal Chemistry. 

 f758'i 



