vi SHEEP FEEDING 



feeder of fifty thousand, into the hands of the farmer who 

 handles but a carload or two. Hundreds have fed sheep 

 for the first time during the last two or three years, and 

 have started with merely a little uncertain knowledge that 

 was gleaned from a neighbor. For these it is hoped that a 

 few words from the broad experiences of many of the most 

 successful sheep men in the United States will prove a 

 means by which some of the "breakers" in the sheep-feeding 

 business may be avoided. 



To both the student and the farmer it may be said that 

 the greatest success will come only after an extended per- 

 sonal experience ; but a clear understanding of the needs, 

 habits, and characteristics of sheep will be found an invalu- 

 able aid to each if he wishes to get his first lessons at a 

 reasonable price. 



To those who follow these pages to the end it will be 

 evident that there has been no effort on the part of the 

 author to make of them a scientific treatise, but rather just 

 a simple discussion of practical sheep-farm practices as they 

 have been found in operation in the different sections of 

 the United States. No one man, or no one community, is 

 carrying on all the systems that are outlined. They have 

 been found, here a little and there a little, one man adding 

 a word and another affirming it, and so on to the completed 

 and rounded whole. 



To those who have so generously given their experiences, 

 successes and failures, ideas and opinions, the author wishes 

 to extend his most sincere thanks, for without their broad- 

 minded and public-spirited help this work would have been 

 impossible. It is from the farmers and those interested in 

 their welfare, and to them and their sons and daughters 

 in our agricultural schools and colleges it is given. 



