34 The Fence Question in the South. 



" It is by far the cheapest method of manuring land. No hauling manure is required, as the 

 sheep haul their own manure, both solid and liquid, to precisely the spot on which it is desired 

 to apply it. It is evenly spread, without labor, no part being excessively manured at the ex- 

 pense of another part. The effect of this manuring will be felt for years. Land so manured is 

 good for two bags of cotton to the acre the following year. The other advantage is the fine con- 

 dition into which the sheep are put at a season of the year when mutton brings the highest 

 price. When land is put into sufficiently good order to bring five hundred bushels of turnips to 

 the acre, the gain in mutton is equivalent to the cost of the crop. The heavy manuring of the 

 land is, then, clear gain." 



Sheep manure, from its coldness, does not ferment like horse dung, and therefore retains its 

 value much longer than the excrement of the horse or man. It ranks among the very best of 

 the manures produced by animals, especially from those sheep that are fed with rich food for 

 fattening purposes. As has been already stated, mastication of sheep is so perfect there is no 

 danger of weed seeds coming up after having passed through the stomach of a sheep. Both the 

 urine and the dung are very rich in fertilizing properties. Urea, the active principle of urine, 

 has a large quantity of nitrogen in it, and sheep's urine contains, according to one of our best 

 analysts, 28 parts of urea in every 1,000 parts, and 12 parts of salt, among which is a large 

 proportion of phosphoric acid. In one hundred parts of the dung of sheep there are 68 per cent, 

 of water, 19.3 of animal and vegetable matter, and 12.7 per cent, of saline matters. This 19.3 

 per cent, of organic matter contains as much nitrogen, which is the value of manures chiefly, 

 as 43 parts of horse dung, 63 parts of hog manure, or 125 parts of cow dung, and is equal to 100 

 parts of the ordinary stable or barnyard manure. It is much drier than other manures, having 

 but little water, comparatively speaking. For instance, let a horse receive 100 parts of dry 

 fodder, and he will defecate 216 pounds of fresh manure, which being dried, makes 46 pounds 

 of dry manure, while the sheep with the same food would give but 128 pounds of fresh manure, 

 making 43 pounds of dried. This is manure made with the ordinary method of feeding, such 

 as hay, fodder, and such grass as they can pick up. But when sheep are fed with grain or other 

 highly stimulating food for fattening purposes, with food rich in albumen and phosphates, the 

 oil and starch only are assimilated and go to the formation of fat and flesh, while the remainder, 

 including the larger part of the salts, goes to the manure heap, thus adding very greatly to its 

 value as a land application. This fact has long been known and used to the improvement of 

 land by the English farmer, and must be learned and practiced by our people. The declining 

 fertility of our soils call loudly for all the aid we can give it, and it is time to recognize the fact 

 that, if we continue to draw from the land, and never put anything to it, it will after awhile 

 to respond to our calls upon it. (Killibrew's Sheep Husbandry.) 



The Journal of the American Agricultural Association contains a very care- 

 ful Canadian computation on this point. It says the enclosures may be ar- 

 ranged to accommodate a certain number of sheep, so that the land may be 

 properly and regularly manured. The calculation is that one sheep passing 

 one night on one square yard of land is equal, in money value, to 3, 10s. 

 ($17.50) per acre ; and it is upon this basis that acts of husbandry, as they 

 are called, for which the incoming tenant has to pay his predecessor, are val- 

 ued. Says this writer : 



"Think, for a moment, of what passe* in the fold during the night. The land has been recently 

 ploughed ; the liquid and solid dejections are therefore easily absorbed, the oil from the fleece 

 forming by no means an inappreciable part of them. The sheep, many weighing from a hun- 

 dred and twenty pounds each, pass eight or ten hours on the same spot, and the pressure of 

 their bodies, together with the trampling of their tiny-pointed hoofs, condense and solidify the 

 land in a fashion that no roller, not even Crosskill's clod crusher, could hope to emulate." 



The presence of five hundred sheep upon a Southern farm will it is declared 

 enrich five acres every month in the year far better than purchased fertilizers, 

 and at the same time pay in wool and mutton a better per cent than does cot- 

 ton upon the labor and expense. Col. Watts of Laurens Co., South Carolina, 

 a life-long sheep breeder in South Carolina, Georgia and Texas, keeps at the 

 rate of one thousand sheep to the acre, which he regards as equivalent to four 

 hundred pounds of the best guano. Its effects are perceptible for several 

 \ears. He believes, from careful experimenting, that fifty- two acres of 

 land can be so well fertilized in twelve months, by one thousand sheep, as to 

 be rich soil for five years following. He declares the effects of such manuring 

 wonderful. We might go on with these citations far beyond all reasonable 

 limits, and yet not exhaust the statement of a fact known to American sheep 

 breeders. We are now to speak of the relations that are coming to be con- 

 sidered, between Wool growing and Cotton raising. And here we bring 

 forward from Hon. Edward Atkinson some of the points presented in his 

 address at Atlanta, Ga., Oct., 1880. 



