88 SHEEP FEEDING 



Use of hurdles in pasturing. The peas are ready to turn 

 onto as soon as the first pods are well formed, but a better 

 guide is to start pasturing them sufficiently early so that 

 they will be consumed before frost. It is advisable to use 

 hurdles or temporary fencing in order to keep the stock 

 from roaming over the whole field. These hurdles may be 

 moved forward every few days as the stock grazes down 

 the new portions. Do not force fattening sheep to graze 

 one portion clean before they are given a fresh allowance, 

 for they will clean up each portion by working back over it 

 day by day, but they must be allowed to do so from choice 

 and not from compulsion. An acre of peas properly handled 

 should make from fifteen to twenty pounds of gain on from 

 ten to fifteen lambs, or about two hundred to two hundred 

 and fifty pounds of mutton per acre. Hog raisers that pas- 

 ture down peas say that an acre will feed five hogs forty- 

 five to sixty days, making from one to two pounds of gain 

 per day, depending on the age of the hog, or from two hun- 

 dred and fifty to three hundred pounds of pork per acre. 

 Some of the best varieties of cowpeas for sheep pasturing, 

 and those that are also adapted to the middle latitudes, 

 are the Blacks, Red Ripper, Groit, Whippoorwill, and New 

 Era. The last named matures very early. 



Soy beans. The day will come when the growth of soy 

 beans will be greatly extended, for it is a most excellent 

 legume for producing large amounts of highly nitrogenous 

 seed. As a forage crop for hogs it will undoubtedly rank 

 above cowpeas wherever it will make an equally successful 

 growth. It thrives better in the northern latitudes, while 

 cowpeas are a southern plant. Stock farmers should give 

 more attention to the matter of home production of protein, 

 and the soy bean is the plant that will solve the problem 



