140 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



more than fifty years, proved that sheep may be fed with a 

 profit of fifty per cent more than cattle. For the food con- 

 sumed the sheep laid up an increase of live weight of twelve 

 per cent, while cattle increased only eight per cent. So that 

 eight and a half pounds of food increased the weight of 

 sheep as much as twelve and a half pounds of the same 

 food increased the weight of cattle. The wool is thrown 

 in as a bonus to the feeder of sheep, and this we may believe 

 will pay the cost of the feeding. So that the farmer who 

 feeds a flock of sheep over a Winter will make fifty per cent 

 more weight of the same food as compared with cattle, and 

 have the fleece besides. The lamb will offset the calf if it 

 does not largely exceed the profit in it, for there may be 

 seven lambs reared for one calf, and this without the labor 

 of attending to the calves. The lambs feed themselves. Be- 

 sides the profit from the lambs comes in within a few 

 months, while the calf takes more time to mature. 



FEEDING FOR LAMBS. 



One of the most profitable methods of feeding a flock 

 is to purchase a bunch of ewes in the late Summer, or earlier 

 if possible. By good feeding, while on the aftermath of a 

 clover field, with a run on a grain stubble, until the Winter 

 sets in, and then feeding on clover hay and a small allow- 

 ance of oats, and a still smaller feed of corn, with a few 

 chopped roots, and a change of the grain to bran occasion- 

 ally, making use of a cheap, simple feeding shed, in a dry 

 yard, a flock of sheep bred to a pure Cotswold rani has made 

 a profit of one hundred and fifty per cent on the money in- 

 vested for something less than a year. It was a small ex- 

 periment made by the author to test this matter of profit to 

 the farmer made in this easy way. The value of the large 

 quantity of manure left in the shed when the sheep went on 

 to a second year clover field, in the Spring, is not counted 

 in these figures, but it was well worth more than a dollar 

 a head for the ewes kept. The sheep were common natives, 

 and had they been a better lot the profit might have 

 been larger. But it is an easy matter to procure a lot of 

 picked native sheep from the passing droves, when it would 

 not be so easy to procure better bred ewes. The better bred 

 lambs, however, made the most of the profit, and proved the 



