164 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



Perhaps other barnyard manure would do as well, but I 

 doubt it. 



Mr. Moore of New Braintree. I have been very much 

 interested in this essay. Sheep husbandry is something that 

 is valuable to us, I believe, in more ways than one, and the 

 principal drawback seems to be lack of protection from 

 dogs, — the fact that our sheep are cleaned out, we might 

 say, by dogs. Mr. Bowditch has spoken of the hurdle, and 

 I suppose he has a model of it there. I wish he would ex- 

 plain to us something about the cost of making it, the num- 

 ber of sheep which it is good practice to enclose together in 

 hurdles, and if it is a thorough protection in the night-time 

 from clogs. 



Mr. Bowditch. I do not know how perfect a protection 

 it is from dogs, but we have kept from fifty to three hun- 

 dren sheep and hurdled them every night during the season 

 for the last five or six years. We have never had a dog get 

 through the hurdles. Whether they have ever tried it or not 

 I can't say, but I have never had my sheep worried. Hurdles 

 cost about forty cents a length. You merely take common 

 fence pickets, which always come four feet long, and two by 

 three inch scantlino- for the rails. 



Question. How many lengths are required to enclose 

 say fifty sheep. 



Mr. Bowditch. It depends entirely upon what you 

 want to do. At night they will stand very close hurdling. 

 It is according as you want to accomplish the work on your 

 land or pasture. Where you want to crop it and kill the 

 bushes, the smaller the hurdle the better, because they will 

 trample it so continuously that they will kill the underbrush 

 and enrich the bushes so much they will die ; but if you want 

 the manure as top-dressing for a mowing field, it would be 

 better to have a larger hurdle, so that the dressing will be 

 scattered over a wider space. 



Question. Is there any difficulty in getting them into 

 the hurdle ? 



Mr. Bowditch. No, sir. The moment the man comes 

 in sight to put the grain in the troughs, if the sheep are in 

 the field where they can see him, they will come at once and 

 crowd in. 



