SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 355 



of the mutton or meat-growing breeds, or largely 'tinctured with that 

 blood. For the reason that cross bred animals are, as a rule, more 

 hardy, quick-growing and early- maturing than any pure breed, it is well 

 to choose cross-bred lambs. Hampshire blood on the one side, prefera- 

 bly that of the sire, (although any of the Down breeds do well), is to 

 be preferred. But from the fact that American Merino ewes are so much 

 more numerous and withal so hardy, cross-bred lambs from Merino 

 ewes and some Down sire, Hampshire, Shropshire or Southdown in the 

 order named, are most easily obtained and as good as any. 



Many feeders make the mistake of putting in lambs too old and heavy. 

 Such lambs are so near mature that they will not make so many pounds 

 gain. In our markets they cost more per pound, and when spring comes 

 they will not sell for enough more per pound to make up for the larger 

 cost when purchased in the fall. If good thrifty lambs of about fifty- 

 five or sixty pounds can be bought about October first, they can be so 

 fed as to get out May first at one hundred and ten to one hundred and 

 twenty pounds without fleece, and bring top prices. 



Quartering and Feeding. The old way of feeding sheep on 

 timothy hay and corn, and letting them run all over the farm will not 

 do in these days of close competition, and with the people asking for 

 lean, juicy, tender meat. To get best prices, mutton must be such as 

 is wanted by the best customers, and the day when full-grown wethers, 

 so loaded with fat that they could hardly stand up, were paraded through 

 the streets to attract trade to the shop of the owner has gone into obliv- 

 ion, never to return. A lamb now weighing forty pounds, lean and 

 toothsome, will sell for more money than one of those three hundred 

 pound fat-covered wethers. 



It takes food to maintain animal heat, and for all the food which goes 

 to that use the feeders get no return. It also uses up food to enable the 

 sheep to run all over the farm and take that great amount of "exercise," 

 and "exercise" never makes muscle or lean meat; it only hardens it. 

 "Exercise," while not adding to the most valuable part of the carcass, 

 really makes that which we have less valuable. 



What is wanted then is to put the lambs in a good, roomy, well-ven- 

 tilated, warm and dry quarters. Keep them with just as little exercise 

 as is consistent with health, and then feed them all the food of the right 

 kind they can assimilate. If the sheep feeder wishes to study economy 

 in the construction of his folds, he may build more than one story high. 

 So long as they are sufficiently roomy and well ventilated, and the floors 



