1871. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



627 



comb. Others again would drive out the bees, 

 and put them into some other stock that is 

 weak in numbers, and save the hive and comb 

 for next season's use ; but the combs being 

 more or less filled with young brood, which 

 will in that case die in the combs and putrefy, 

 they are at a loss how to dispose of it. 



No doubt this last is decidedly the best plan, 

 and where frame hives are used, the brood 

 may all be got rid of without difficulty. All 

 that is necessary is to take away the queen, 

 and leave the bees queenless for twenty days. 

 The brood will then all hatch out, when the 

 bees may be driven out and put into some 

 stock having plenty of honey, and the hive 

 and combs placed in some outhouse where it is 

 perfectly dry and cold, where the conlbs will 

 become frozen during winter, which will de- 

 strov any egg or larvse of the moth that might 

 be in them, and next season the combs will be 

 of great help to new swarms, and of far more 

 value than- all the honey and wax that could 

 be got out of them. Even common hives may 

 be served in the same way by driving out the 

 bees, capturing and killing tne queen ; then 

 return the bees, and wait as before. It is not 

 absolutely necessary to wait twenty days, as 

 most of the brood will have hatched in twelve 

 or fifteen days, so that it would be safe to re- 

 move the bees and put the hives away for next 

 season's use. — J. H. Thomas, in Canada 

 Farmer. 



FALL TKEATMEWT OF BREEDUNrO- 

 EWES. 



If the ewes have been at all reduced by 

 suckling their lambs through the Summer, im- 

 mediately after their milk has dried up eiForts 

 should be made to regain a thrifty condition 

 by the time the couplmg season commences. 

 A sufficient reason for this is, they can be 

 wintered easier and cheaper if put into high 

 condition before the extremely cold and stormy 

 weather begins. But additional reasons are 

 to be found in the fact that they will take the 

 ram more readily, and be more likely to get 

 with lamb — no. inconsiderable item if choice 

 rams are used, and it is desirable to get as 

 much service from a single animal as possible. 

 They will shear heavier fleeces the following 

 season, with better length and strength, than 

 if stinted "from grass to corn." 



No marter how good the pasturage, we have 

 found it profitable to feed them one-half to 

 one bushel of corn daily to each hundred 

 breeding ewes, for ten days before, and du- 

 ring the coupling season. This was usually 

 thrown to them in the ear, when they were 

 through grazing, or just before sunset. We 

 preferred this time, as the stronger animals 

 were not so likely to injure the weaker ones by 

 crowding, or themselves by over-eating. Un- 

 der such treatment, we have from a flock of a 

 thousand ewes, picked out and bred as many 

 as four hundred the first week. Following 



this course, lambs will drop the following 

 Spring as fast as any sheep-farmer, with but 

 ordinary facilities, can properly care for them. 

 "Teasers'" put into the flock every morning, 

 before turning to pasture, will, in a short time, 

 find most of the ewes that are rutting. These 

 can be packed out by the shepherd as fast as 

 found, and placed in a separate pen, to be at- 

 tended to while the large flock is grazing. 

 The animals that have been bred, should be 

 marked and kept to themselves until the en- 

 tire flock has been served. This saves much 

 labor and annoyance to both shepherd and 

 sheep. 



We have always had the best "luck," during 

 the lambing season, with the flock that was in 

 the highest condition in the Spring — losing 

 the fewest ewes while yeaning, and the fewest 

 lambs from lack of milk or refusal of dam to 

 "own" them. And so it will be found, we 

 doubt not, with flock-masters generally. Not 

 only are the lambs from such ewes worth 

 double as much as the increase from a flock 

 dragged through the winter in a half starved 

 condition, but they will not require half the 

 labor and attention to bring them to maturity. 

 Uniformity in the size of the different animals 

 in a flock can be secured in no other way so 

 readily as by liberal feeding and proper atten- 

 tion during the coupling and yeaning seasons, 

 — West Bural. 



SHEEP-HERDEES IN CALIFORNTA. 



In an article giving an account of the great 

 sheep runs of California, the Western Rural 

 says that the Sheep-herders, or those who 

 have the care of those large flocks, are, as a 

 class, the most worthless, morally and socially, 

 the most unprincipled, reckless and collapsed 

 company of vagabonds to be found in any 

 civilized country, unless it be Australia. One 

 man had employed, in a single year, a bishop's 

 son, a banker, a civil engineer, a priest and a 

 bookkeeper as shepherds, all of whom had 

 been banished by their friends or by them- 

 selves for their "country's good." Altogether 

 they are the rifF-rafF of the world ; vagrant 

 miners, who gamble away their month's wages 

 as soon as they draw the same ; runaway 

 sailors from ships in San Francisco, who sell 

 their blankets for a pillow case full of biscuits. 

 and then get never a pinch of grub for two 

 days ; measly, old, groggy soldiers, who fall 

 asleep under a live oak, and let the coyotes 

 pull away a lamb. The good old Bible word 

 "Shepherd" is not heard in California, it is 

 either "wool-grower," "ranchero," or that 

 most cumbrous and absurd "sheep-raiser ;" and 

 for the man who does the work, he is a "sheep- 

 herder." And when a man gets so low down 

 as to be a "sheep-herder" in California, he 

 would better go and dig a hole in the ground, 

 insert his head therein, and ask some pitying 

 friend to cover it up. He is lower than a 

 Greaser, for this is the Greaser's natural bu.;:— 



