I 



LIVE STOCK. Ua 



on each Bide of the pole. Oue series of holes is bored in a direction at right 

 angles to that of the other, and when the stakes are all properly placed they 

 form a hurdle, the end of which looks Uke the letter X. The engraving 

 shows how these hnrdles are made and the method of using them. A row 

 of these hurdles is placed across the field. The field in which they are used 

 consists of six acres. A strip of ten feet wide is thus set ofif, upon which four 

 hundred sheep feed. They eat up all the grass upon this strip and that 

 which they can reach by putting their heads through the hurdles. The 

 hurdles are then ttimed over, exposing another strip of rather more than 

 four feet wide at each turn. When this is fed off, th'i hnrdles are again 

 turned over. The sharp points presented by the hurdles prevents any tree- 

 passing upon the othier side of them, and by using two rows of hnrdles the 

 sheep are kept in the narrow strip between them. Their droppings are very 

 evenly spread over the field, and it is richly fertilized by them. At night 

 the sheep are taken off and the grass is watered. The growth is one inch 

 per day under this treatment, and when the field haa been fed over, the 

 sheep are brought back again to the starting point and commence once 

 more eating their way along. 



Raiding Peed for Sheep. — The com raised especially for sheep should 

 be planted in drills, three and one-half feet apart, and abont six inches in 

 the drill. It will ear sufficiently, and should be shocked when the ear is 

 just passing out of the milk, in large, well-built shocks. And the moet 

 profitable use that can be made of tliis for winter feeding is, to ran it 

 through a cutter, directly firom the shock, reducing to fine chaff, stalks, 

 ears, and all. If cut one-fourth of an inch long, the sheep will eat it tdl 

 clean; this we know from practical experience. With a large cutter, a ton 

 can be cut in twenty to thirty minutes. This cut com, fed in properly oon- 

 Btracted troughs, will furnish both grain and coarse fodder. The only im- 

 provement you can make on this ration, without cooking, is to feed with it 

 some more nitrogenous food, such as bran, linseed meal, or cotton seed 

 meal. Wool is a nitrogenous product, and com is too &ttening a rati(m 

 when fed alone. 



To Tell the Age of Sheep. — The books on sheep have seriously misled 

 flock-masters on this subject. Almost any sheep owner will tell yon that 

 after a year the sheep gets a pair of broad teeth yearly: and if yon show 

 that his own three-year-olds have four pairs of broad teeth, he can only 

 claim that they are exceptions, and protest that they do not exceed three 

 years of age. Now these cases are no exception, for all well-bred sheep 

 hare a tuU mouth of front teeth at three years old. Some old, unimproved 

 flocks may still be found in which the month is not full until nearly four 

 years old, but fortunately these are now the exceptions, and should not be 

 made the standard, as they so constantly are. In Cotswolds, Leicesters, 

 Lincolns, South-Downs, Oxford-Downs, Hampshire-Downs, and even in the 

 advanced Merinos, and in the grades of all of these dentition is completed 

 from half a year to a year earlier. The milk or lamb teeth are easily dis- 

 tinguished from the permanent or broad teeth by their smaller size and by 

 the thickness of the jaw bone around their fangs where the permanent teeth 

 are still inclosed. As the lamb approaches a year old, the broad exposed 

 part of the tooth becomes worn away, and narrow fangs projecting above the 

 gums stand apart from each other, leaving wide intervals. This ia even 

 more marked after the first pair of permanent teeth have come tip, OTerlap- 



