208 MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP. 



high grades of these, it is scarcely necessary to say, depends 

 entirely on the quantity of feed the soil is capable of furnish- 

 ing, if the writer may judge from his own experience and 

 of the many with whom he has corresponded, the average 

 may be stated at thirty-live acres. One flock-master made 

 provision, last season, by the aid of some straw and chaff 

 fed through the winter for the above number, from off twenty- 

 five acres. But his locality is of the fertile region of West- 

 ern New York, and his example therefore will not be safe 

 generally to follow, without the hazard of incurring the charge 

 of " overdoing." In considering his success, the straw and 

 chafl" must be taken into view, which of course grew not on 

 the area of land stated. 



BAD POLICY IN KEEPING SHEEP TOO LONG ON PASTURE 

 ALONE, LATE IN THE FALL. 



It is the practice of a large majority of flock-masters to 

 allow their sheep to run upon the fields in the fall, as long 

 as the ground is uncovered with snow, without the aid of a 

 little hay or grain. This is bad management, and cannot be 

 too strongly condemned. The grass, it is well known, after 

 repeated freezing, loses much of its virtue to nourish, and 

 therefore fails to keep up good condition, unless accompanied 

 with a modicum of hay, or grain. The diminution of flesh 

 may not be very apparent, yet nothing is more certain than 

 that the sheep are losing their stamina. If some are expos- 

 tulated with on this subject, they reply, " We do offer hay, 

 but the sheep refuse to eat it ;" but on further investigation, 

 it proves to be the tops of their stacks, somethimg not worthy 

 the name of hay, and therefore no wonder the sheep rejected 

 it, preferring the decaying grass to such trash. It would 

 not have been thus, if it had been barn hay ; which is an 

 item proving the great utility of barns to the flock-master. 

 Many sheep are sent out of this " breathing world before their 

 time ;" and if their ghosts were permitted to return and un- 

 fold the cause, they would shake their woolly locks, and say, 

 " We did it," by starvation late in the fall. Let us reform in 

 this matter altogether. 



SORTING, PREPARATORY TO \\XNTER. 



This very obvious and essential duty is strangely unheed- 

 ed, yet nothing scarcely is more important. To put the 



