404 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



This system is also followed, to some extent, in portions 

 of Southern New York, and the adjacent parts of Penn- 

 sylvania ; and when a good lot of ewes can be obtained, the 

 best management is generally successful. But this, how- 

 ever, is the mere factitious part of sheep husbandry. It is 

 making the best of a bad system carried on by others, who 

 do not know how properly to dispose of the sheep they 

 raise. These ewes are raised under a very defective system 

 of feeding, and are not so thrifty and disposed to early ma- 

 turity as they would be if reared under a better system ; 

 and it is only by a Southdown cross (or perhaps a Cotswold) 

 that good early lambs can be raised for market. Yet these 

 ewes are benefited by raising these lambs under a better 

 system of feeding, and make very fair carcasses of mutton 

 themselves after this preparation. They have been fed so 

 sparingly all their previous lives, that it takes a few months, 

 under good feeding, to induce a thrifty and healthy state 

 of the secretions preparatory to fattening. This state of 

 sheep-feeding is in the same condition that cattle-feeding 

 was a few years ago, when the store cattle were raised by 

 one class of farmers, and fattened for beef by another ; and 

 this is still the practice in many parts of the country ; but 

 it is quite different from that complete system of sheep- 

 feeding to be established in the future, in which the lambs 

 will never pass from the hands of the feeder until sold to 

 the butcher or shipper. Then uniformity of practice may 

 be established, and the animal receive such food and care 

 every day of its life as to produce the best result under the 

 system adopted. 



The old system of slow growth and late maturity has 

 been abandoned by the most progressive feeders of all 

 classes of animals intended for food, and the better one of 

 full-feeding, rapid growth, and early maturity adopted in- 

 stead. There is no class of animals to which this improved 

 system may be applied with greater profit than sheep. 



