124 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA. 



crops remarkable for their distinguishing 

 greenness and rankness. 



There are reasons why we shonld not permit 

 the sheep to shade where they will, along 

 fences and beneath trees. First the manure is 

 wasted there ; 'then the shade is seldom really 

 satisfactory. Sufficient in the early morning the 

 sun has by noon moved so that it is no longer 

 comfortable and the silly flock will suffer much 

 before moving away. Worst of all is the dan- 

 ger to the health of the sheep through para- 

 sitic infection. Lying much in one place there 

 is an accumulation of droppings presumably 

 bearing germs of various harmful* parasites 

 puch as stomach worms, throat worms, hodlilar 

 disease and the like. The droppings stiniatate 

 the growth of sweet, rich grasses here.- , The 

 germs harbor on the roots and about the base 

 of these grasses. Lambs living in shade near- 

 by become humgry and venturing into the sun 

 a little way nibble at these rich grasses.. It is 

 worth noting that sheep will the more gr^dily 

 eat " grass that grows strong, from , manured 

 land, than that which is thin ahd tougii, growing 

 on poor soil. The lambs, then, nibbling this 

 thick grass, which is thus kept short, take in 

 many germs of stomm^h worms and other para- 

 sites which their momers have deposited there 

 with their dung. Thus disease creeps in the 

 flock. In England the writer has seen shep- 

 herds put fences of hurdles about trees to pre- 

 vent ewes lying beneath them when on grass 

 and explaining that they found when, the ewes 

 laid in the ?hade of those trees they "took cold 



