THE GENESEE FARMER. 



335 



the west the corn shot up rapidly, and hand-hoeing was un- 

 necessary. He thought good stalks were better than j^oo?' 

 hay, but'that there is as much virtue iu an acre of corn- 

 stalks as in an acre of hay is ridiculous. Hay will fatten 

 cattle, stalks will not. 



SECOND EVENING. 

 The subject proposed for discussion this evening was : 

 " Wool Growing and Mutton Sheep ; Breeds Best Adapt- 

 ed to Each ; Is it Desirable to Increase the Breeding of 

 Sheep-iu this State, for Wool or Mutton?" 



John Wade, of Cobourg, C. W., stated that in Canada 

 they prefered the larger, long-wooled, mutton sheep, be- 

 cause they can make more money by them. Considers 

 them hardier than the tine-wooled sheep. Will shear S 

 lbs. of washed wool. The wool is not worth so much per 

 pound, but on the whole they are more profitable. He 

 tinds it advantageous to feed vvell. Gives his sheep " all 

 they want," but has never measured the quantity. In or- 

 dei" to keep up the vigor and hardihood of the Leicesters, 

 it had been found necessary to cross them with the larger 

 and stronger Cotswolds and Lincolns. He remarked that 

 Bakewell procured all the best animals he could find 

 around him, and bred them in-and-in, which injured their 

 stamina, ,and rendered necessary a resort to Cotswold 

 blood. 



John S. Pettibone, of Vermont, had long been con- 

 vinced that for a farmer who has but 50 or 7.5 sheep, it is 

 best to ke«p the lai-ger mutton breeds ; but for a llock of 

 800 to 1,000, the fine-wooled would be the most profitable. 

 A common cause of failure is in allowing the animals to 

 run down in condition in autumn, at a time when the 

 amount of feeders has increased by the growth of lambs, 

 and the feed lessened. He regarded it important to have 

 plenty of pasture and hay, which will maintain a good 

 condition, but remarked "grain will do no hurt." He 

 keeps them close and well-sheltered during winter, and 

 never lost but two lambs, which were by accidental injury. 

 He said that one great secret of success was to attend to 

 your Hocks personally, and good care would be the result 

 —he never knew a man to look at his pig while it was 

 feeding unless it was fine and tat — the man who has poor 

 animals always gives the food and then runs away. He 

 never sells his best, but always keeps his best sheep — he 

 keeps a record, and has them all registered, and no one 

 can buy of him any that are marked "betit." He does not 

 like excessively gummy sheep, aud has known one to 

 shear 2'i lbs., but give less wool when washed than a 

 clean- wooled one of 13 lbs.; yet many ditfer from him be- 

 cause every one thinks " ?«y sheep are best." When he 

 commenced the sheep business first, he let all the ewes 

 breed that would, and the consequence was he lost a 

 great many sheep. Since he had been careful to select 

 the best ewes for breeding, he had met with few losses. 

 Keeps a flock of 100 breeding ewes. Feeds them one 

 peck of coi'u per day, or its equivalent in oats or other 

 grain. Has one ewe that has raised him eighteen lambs, 

 and never sheared less than 4 lbs. of wool, and from that 

 III) to 6 lbs. Does not like these extra gummy sheep. 

 . M'lieu the gum begins to run in the spring, they want 

 blanketing. Sometimes feeds only once a day; never 

 more than twice a day. Twice a day is better than three 

 tunes. 

 Wm. Baker, of Urbana, Steuben county, has kept fine- 

 I wooled sheep — his management is to give his lambs a very 

 I little grain, beginning in October and continuing until 

 winter — he then yards them where there is always a sup- 

 . ply of water, feeds them in racks twice a day just what 

 taoy will eat, and no more. He has never raised the 

 coarse-wooled breeds — his fleeces are not gummy, and 

 yield 44 to 45 lbs. per head, and sometimes more. He 

 "winters 40ii' head in a barn divided into three parts by a 

 low board fence. The proceeds of his flock vary consid- 

 erably, but average about two dollars per head annually. 

 He is" very particular to feed them always at the same 

 ; tiaie of day, with great regularity. He gives straw only 

 la part of the time — if given constantly, he would add 

 I grain. He maintained that there is nothing like a flock 

 Jof sheep to keep up the fertility of land; has kept 800 

 ( sheep a year on something less than 200 acres of land, 

 including the hay and pasture for them; and has made 

 ' the land so fertile as to raise 120 bushels of shelled corn 

 oa au acre. He feeds potatoes, beets, or carrots, to the 



ewes 20 days before lambing, and regards potatoes as the 

 richest food, and beets the easiest raised on his land. 



Gen. Harmon, of Monroe county, commenced sheep 

 husbandry with the fine-wooled or Merino. After a few 

 years, he crossed with Leicester, — then gave up the cross, 

 and returned to the fine- wools. He greatly prefers the 

 latter on his fertile wheat lands ; finds their compact 

 fleeces will keep the water out, and for this reason are 

 hardier than the long and open-wooled. When he first 

 crossed with the latter, he gave $25 for the use of a long- 

 wool ram for 25 ewes, and then bought for $5u another 

 ram of the same kind, but would have made money had 

 he given §50 to the man to keep him away. That was the 

 amount of his experience with long-wool sheep. He does 

 not allow ewes to have lambs under three years, and the 

 fleeces average 45 to 5 lbs. From 332 sheep he sold the 

 last two years ^705 worth of wool yearly — two years ago 

 he had about 100 lambs, which he sold for $200, making 

 $Si05 yearly proceeds. He occupies less than 200 acres, 

 with mixed husbandry, feeds but little hay, but straw, 

 corn, oats, aud some bran — feeds in rack's made of up- 

 right sticks set in boles bored in plank, nine inches apart, 

 and covered with scantling, where the iiiiimals eat quietly 

 without molesting each other. In winter ...-eps his sheep 

 in pens 14 by 40 feet; 50 sheep in a pen. He washes the 

 fleeces on the sheep, in a stream, till the wtiter runs clear 

 from them, and shears five to eight dii.vs afterward. 

 Shearei's offered to do the work for six cent < per head or 

 for $1.75 per day — he accepted the former, but so large 

 were the fleeces that they could make but §1.50 per day. 

 He has fed his flock on 25 acres of reclaimed swamp, but 

 remarked " there is no tallow in this land," it would 

 merely keep the sheep but would not fatten them. Feeds 

 his chafl' to his sheep, and thinks highly of it. 



Lewis F. Allen, of Black Rock, stated that he had kept 

 sheep about 25 years, and that he has found it to depend 

 entirely on circumstances whether sheep raising, or coarse 

 or fine-wooled animals are profitable. He related the an- 

 ecdote of the builders of the city wall — the mason advis- 

 ed stone, the carpenter wood, while the tanner thought 

 there was nothing like leather. So every man had nis 

 preference with sheep. It is important to look to circum- 

 stances — along the line of railroads and near cities, the 

 South Down sheep are best, being easily sent to market 

 as mutton — in more remote regions he would select the Me- 

 rino. He sells the South-Down at $5 or $0, and sometimes 

 |8 or |9, per head, and his lambs for $2.50 — the wool at 

 40 cents per pound. In answer to a question whether he 

 could distinguish different breeds by the taste of the mut- 

 ton in thin slices, he said that he could — aud remarked 

 that fine-wooled animals secreted much grease and thus 

 pi-evented proper perspiration, and that he could "taste 

 the wool" in the meat. He does not like the larger coarse 

 wool animals, remarking that Canadians, who raise them 

 so largely, have their foreign predilections — he had seen 

 ewes of these sorts in Canada weighing 200 lbs. aud rams 

 between .'JOu and 400 lbs., "and as fat as they could roll," 

 — he defied any man to eat a full meal of them — they were 

 sent to the St. Nicholas and other large hotels iu New- 

 York, made a great show on the tables, and were much 

 admired, but only a pound or two could be eaten off" of a 

 wenty-five pound piece, and the rest went to the tallow- 

 chandler — one might as well try to eat a cake of tallow. 

 Roots should be fed cautiously to sheep, or they will 

 scour. A few may be given with advantage at lambing 

 time. 



H. Bowen, jr., of Medina, Orleans county, has raised 

 both kinds of sheep, fine and coarse wooled, for the past 

 seven or eight years. He lives about 30 miles this side of 

 L. F. Allen's, and also in a fine wheat region, and finds 

 the coarse-wools the most profitable. His animals have 

 averaged about 150 lbs., and sell for $5 to ?:10 or §12 pei- 

 head, while the Merinos bring only $3. They have ave- 

 raged six' pounds of wool, which has sold at 31 cents per 

 pound — some have yielded 8 lbs. He thinks they are a 

 cross of Cotswold and Leicester, and says they have a 

 compact fleece, and not loose and open, as had been pre- 

 viously objected to. He would prefer to have the sheep 

 eat oft' his crop of clover and yield their manure, to plow- 

 ing in the green crop. 



L. F. Alle.n thought on heavy soil it would be best to 

 plovv in the clover — that it would render the soil looser — 

 but that on a light soil, the sheep manure might be best. 



Solos Robinson, in reply to a question, said the South- 



