350 Transactions of the American Institute. 



pastures can be had; and, if properly managed, will, in open win- 

 ters, do much to sustain sheep. Lambs should be weaned by the 

 middle of August, when they should be put in a clover field and 

 taught to eat oats, and nothing will make them grow faster. It is 

 important that sheep should be classified during the winter. The 

 best fodder is hay; it should be cut from the middle of June to 

 the middle of July, managed with the utmost care, and never get I 

 wet with rain or dew. Lambs fed with good hay and half a bushel 

 of corn, or a bushel of oats, a day, to the hundred, will keep in 

 good growing order. Not to have good water convenient is one 

 of the gi'eatest errors of sheep-growers. They should also have 

 shelter. More sheep die from disease contracted by bad and insuf- 

 ficient food, and a want of shelter during the first two years of 

 their existence, than from all other causes. Breeding ewes should 

 be kept in fair condition all the time. By good keeping, one will 

 have not only more wool but more lambs. My practice is to break 

 up good ground for corn; the succeeding spring I sow oats, followed 

 by wheat crop; a sufficient amount of timothy seed is sown at the 

 time the wheat is harrowed; the following spring, about the 20th 

 of April, I sow clover seed. By the above course of farmiug, I 

 have fresh meadow every season; and it is a fact worthy of especial 

 notice, that new meadows do not suffer from drouth like old ones. 

 The fanner whose principal aim is to raise sheep, should make it a 

 prime object to have an abundance of good hay, that will super- 

 sede the necessity of the sheep-killing system of feeding straw. 

 To cut hay for sheep is lost labor, particularly because their diges- 

 tive organs are more complete than most animals. If sheep are 

 poor by December 1, they will be likely to remain so all winter. 

 This year finishes up fifty j^ears that I have kept sheep. During 

 all the time, I have made it a practice to let them have, in winter, 

 a range of the pastures in pleasant weather, and I think the health 

 of the sheep and a saving of food have resulted. 



ANGORA GOAT. 



Prof. Israel S. Diehl, commissioner to Asia to investigate the 

 subject of the Asiatic goats and the process of converting their 

 fleeces into fabrics of human clothing, was invited to give a state- 

 ment of his adventures and successes. He told, in a few words, 

 where he had been in Asia, what he had seen and wbat he had 

 accomplished in collecting specimens of the fabrics that were made 

 in Asia. Mr. Diehl has also brought one hundred and fifty choice 



