SECRETARY'S REPORT. 129 



article, and the lambs are good ; for that reason we prefer them. 

 I sold my lambs last season, for the early market, at eleven 

 dollars a head. I suppose some men who have money enough 

 can afford to have them, but they would be rather dear eating 

 for mo. I keep the lambs till they are about four montlis old. 

 The drover usually takes them about the last of April or the 

 first of May, and so on through June. Mine have always gone 

 off by about the first of July. I keep my ewes up till that time. 

 While the lambs are suckling, the sheep is increasing in weight 

 also, and can be turned off for mutton if we are disposed to do 

 it ; and we make three prices, — on the wool, the carcase of the 

 sheep, and the lamb. I have sold the old sheep for six cents a 

 pound when the meat was not worth so much as now. The old 

 sheep would weigh, alive, as high as one hundred and fifty 

 pounds. But this is not all profit, for the sheep requires the 

 best of feed. We prefer rowen, and make it our practice to 

 save this for the time when we wish the greatest amount of 

 milk. The lambs have a pen into which the mothers cannot go, 

 and before them is a box of meal to which they can go at all 

 times. I have had some that would weigh nearly a hundred 

 pounds at four months old. They will take a quart of meal a 

 day sometimes. I have fed to much advantage on cotton-seed 

 or linseed meal. A mixture of cotton-seed meal, linseed meal 

 and oats is better, with some rye also. Some farmers feed rye 

 to advantage. In Shelburne and Conway it has been the 

 practice to use rye. 



Mr. Perkins, of Becket. — What is your opinion of the relative 

 profit of keeping sheep and cattle ? 



Mr. Smith. — I think there is more profit, on the whole, in 

 keeping sheep. For the last few years, perhaps, cattle have been 

 more profitable. It is very pretty business to feed sheep. 

 Lambs will bear grain full as well as yearling sheep. They do 

 not eat so much, and bring more by the pound after being fed, 

 because they have a greater amount of wool in proportion to the 

 cost. Last season I sent to the early market thirty-six lambs 

 from fifty ewes. It takes sheep about two years to get into the 

 way of having early lambs. I have heard it said that slieop will 

 take the ram a month earlier each year, which I believe is true. 



Mr. Stedman. — There is one fact which I will state that was 

 related to me by a neighbor of mine, who feeds for mutton. 

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