166 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



brother shepherd, I assure you it will pay you to get away 

 from your work and your cares 11,0 w and then. Don t go to 

 the cities, either, reeking with bacteria and stale beer, 

 pervaded with avarice and bunco men. Why, I got home 

 yesterday, and am at least three years younger than I was 

 last week. 



And, now what? Why, we will do it all over again, of 

 course, and try to do better. Already we have our first 

 loads of alfalfa hay in the barn and are planning to get 150 

 or more after it. And it shall be -cut early and the leaves 

 shall all be on it, and it shall be nicely cured and smell sweet 

 enough to scent niy lady's handkerchief. And the corn, too. 

 it has been dressed with many a load of manure from the 

 sheds, and when summer days come we shall keep the 

 ground loose and the weeds out and it will, I am sure, 

 grow and yield the big piles of white and yellow ears, and 

 every one of them almost shall slip down some lamb's 

 throat. For lamb feeding is our chosen profession, and no 

 tales of profits to be had from the feeding of cattle or swine 

 shall tempt us to "try our luck" at one thing or another. 

 No, the man w r ho jumps after the departing train, is apt to 

 fall in the ditch rather than into the velvet-lined seat that 

 he desires. Lamb feeding may not be more profitable than 

 other branches of stock feeding, but it is not, on the whole, 

 less profitable and it is a science that is learned, generally, 

 at the cost of some dear experience. Now r that I am a shoe- 

 maker, I shall stick to my last. 



Lapt year, dating our year as we do from the day the 

 last lamb is sold, w ? e fed 625 sheep and lambs for mutton 

 and kept besides something like 100 ewes of good blood with 

 their lambs. Besides this stock we had some 12 cows and 

 10 horses, and perhaps on the average 15 head of swine. 

 Except some summer pasture hired, Woodland Farm of 200 

 acres has fed all this stock and carried over this year some 

 40 tons of hay and 600 bushels of corn. W r e bought a few 

 tons of clover hay, but sold more than as much of other 

 hay. The careful saving and applying of manure did it. 

 Also each year we find the farm producing more of this 

 manure, and for all that I can see this increase will be con- 

 stant from year to year. That is, the more the farm is fed 

 the more it will produce, and the more sheep it will feed, 



