MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 265 



60,000. Then our farmers generally began to f sit up and take 

 notice/ and the last year 162,000 were fed. This year- sufficient 

 peas have been raised to feed at least 300,000 head, and that 

 number, at least, would be fed if feeder 'lambs could be bought 

 at a price feeders would consider reasonable and safe. But the 

 extremely high price of lambs is causing many to hesitate, and at 

 this time it is uncertain how many will finally be fed. Only about 

 225,000 have been contracted for at this date. 



"Our experience thus far with this method of feeding has 

 demonstrated three things : That lambs can be turned into a pea 

 field with practically no danger of them killing themselves (the 

 reason, probably, being that as they are unaccustomed to eating 

 grain of any kind, they begin on the pea vines and gradually learn 

 to eat the pea grain, and, besides, this grain is less dangerous than 

 wheat, barley or corn) ; that they do not get f off feed,' but all 

 thrive, apparently, equally well ; that the losses are less than when 

 fed in corrals in the usual way; that they can be fed to a finish 

 entirely on the pea crop; that they ship well, the shrinkage being 

 light; that they 'kill out' well, the percent of dressed meat being 

 very high ; and that the mutton thus made is a very superior article 

 and is creating a distinct and increasing demand for the pea-fed 

 lamb. 



"The reason why lambs will finish when fed in this way, on 

 the pea crop alone, when it was difficult to finish them when fed 

 pea hay and wheat and barley, as by our original practice, is prob- 

 ably because of the per cent of the carbohydrate content of the 

 pea vines is undoubtedly much increased by allowing them to cure 

 or ripen on the ground without cutting the same as it is increased 

 in alfalfa hay when cut late or beyond the blossom state. Any- 

 how, the fact has been proven that lambs can in this way be fed 

 and finished on the pea crop alone. 



"But this method of feeding lambs is not without its dif- 

 ficulties, as experience has shown. The experienced sheep feeder 

 will at once perceive that it reverses the usual order; that is, in- 

 stead of beginning with a light feed of grain and gradually 

 increasing to full feed, and thus continuing to the finish, our 

 lambs are almost at once on full feed, and that the longer they 

 are kept in a given field the less feed there will be for them and 

 just at the time when they should be eating the most. 



"There is then the apparent difficulty either of wasting feed 

 by turning the lambs into a fresh field before they have cleaned 

 up the first one, or of spoiling the lambs by compelling them 

 to clean up .the first field. This difficulty has been solved in three 

 ways: First, by having hogs (and preferably cattle with the hogs) 

 to clean up after the lambs, and keeping the lambs going by turn- 

 ing them into fresh fields before feed in the first field has become 

 short enough to check gain ; second, by putting self-feeders in their 



