308 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



"My reasons for sowing ten acres with the grain is this : That 

 acreage will make a rapid growth and furnish an abundance of 

 feed, even if the late summer should prove to be very dry, but 

 I would not care to risk sowing the whole field then, because if the 

 season should prove favorable for the growth of rape it might 

 make such a strong growth that it would be nearly as high as the 

 grain and bother like everything at stacking time. 



"I remember once, some years ago, I sowed some rape with 

 oats and I was obliged to go over the field and knock down every 

 shock so the wind and sun might dry out the rape that was in the 

 butts of the bundles, but that oat straw with the dried rape in it 

 was, next to alfalfa hay, the finest sheep feed I ever fed. 



"The rape seed sown in May will usually be from four to 

 eight inches high at harvest time. The sickle will sometimes snip 

 off a few leaves, but not enough to make any difference with stack- 

 ing the grain, and unless the season be very dry will make a rapid 

 growth after the grain is cut, and by the time stacking is done 

 will be one solid mass of green, the finest sheep pasture in the 

 world. My friends, your sheep will feed upon this in preference 

 to the earlier sown rape, but will attack that later in the season. 

 With this pasture you need have no fear of stunting your lambs, 

 but they will swell and grow and your heart will be glad at sight 

 of them. 



"In first turning in the sheep in the rape you will need to 

 be careful, but there is not so much danger of bloat as is gen- 

 erally supposed. Before turning in I would fill them on some kind 

 of food they will relish. They must not be turned in when they 

 are hungry. I would leave them in the rape an hour or an hour 

 and a half the first day. I would follow the same course the second 

 and third days, only the third day I would let down the bars and 

 I would not put them up again the entire fall. I would give them 

 free access to the rape field all day and all night too, for that matter, 

 if the wolves or dogs do not bother. I have not lost but one sheep 

 by bloat since following this plan. 



"I believe there could be a large profit made by the farmers 

 of eastern. South Dakota by sowing their entire grain fields to rape 

 in this manner, then go out on the range west of the Missouri and 

 buy a carload or two of lambs, according to the rape you may have. 

 I would buy in August, let them feed on the rape in the stubble 

 the entire fall, then as a supplement I would have a few acres 

 of rape sown in the corn field, turn in the lambs and let them har- 

 vest rape and corn together, load them and take them with you 

 to the International and sell them for Christmas mutton. If there 

 was a premium on the best carload of lambs you would stand a 

 good show of capturing it." 



