No. 4.] SHEEP RAISING. 159 



carried on, the horse will run into the fence and injure him- 

 self at the first opportunity ; with that precaution there is no 

 trouble. The same thing is to a large extent practised with 

 mature horses. They are taught that barbed-wire fence is a 

 danger to them. The feeling that barbed-wire fence is cruel, 

 and should not be used by humane people, is simply a fad, 

 and held by those who know nothing about it practically, as 

 I look at it. 



It is true that sheep are a great help in keeping down 

 brush in every case. There are some troublesome bushes 

 that they will kill out ; for instance, the high and low^ black- 

 berries. They will take ever}' leaf they can reach on the 

 white birch on some sorts of land, but that does not hold 

 true on the mountains. There they tind other herbage that 

 suits them so well that they neglect the white birch. On 

 sandy soil they will take every w^hite birch they can find. 

 By overstocking the pasture and making it up in grain, you 

 can force or induce them to eat almost any kind of bushes. 

 If the bushes are cut off in the first place, you can depend 

 on the sheep to keep them down if they are kept a little 

 short for food. They w^ill keep down huckleberry bushes and 

 almost any bushes. 



I think if the farmers would go into the sheep business to 

 a certain extent they would find that they had benefited 

 themselves exceedingly. 



Mr. Lyman. In regard to the wire fence, the great trouble 

 is lack of co-operation among the farmers. It is almost im- 

 possible to induce them to put up a wire fence where they 

 do not think they need it, and the man who owns the sheep 

 must do the whole. 



Mr. Blount. Mr. Sessions spoke of the wire fence being 

 injurious to young horses. That is true. We obviate that 

 by j)utting a blocked wire on top. The blocks are about 

 two inches square, and are put in every six inches, making it 

 possible for the horse to see it before he reaches it. We do 

 not have the sheep surrounded by wire. The pastures are 

 the public domains, and the sheep on the public domains are 

 controlled by very few shepherds and dogs. 



The very small amount of moisture in the air there does 

 not carry the germs of the different diseases and we do not 



