200 MANAGEMENT AND FEEDING OF SHEEP 



vantage over both rape and corn in the nitrogen brought 

 to the land while they v^^ere growing. 



The possibility of extending such grazing so as to 

 include wide areas of the mountain country would seem 

 to be of easy realization. The more important of the 

 essentials are: (i) A soil with the requisite food elements 

 to grow the grain ; (2) a climate suitable to the growing 

 of the crop, and what is even more important, to the 

 harvesting of the same by sheep ; (3) stock sheep not too 

 distant that may be secured for finishing. These condi- 

 tions are present, it is claimed, in considerable areas of 

 several mountain states, including New Mexico, Wyo- 

 ming, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, 

 Idaho and Montana. Some of those valleys are already 

 proverbial for the excellent crops of peas which they 

 grow. By no other method can fertility be brought more 

 cheaply to these lands than by grazing down on them 

 some kind of legume. 



Finishing sheep on field roots — The author has not 

 met with any instances in which sheep have been finished 

 in the country on field roots where the latter were har- 

 vested by the sheep. Such a method of finishing them, 

 however, should be quite feasible in certain parts of the 

 United States, as it is in certain parts of Britain. Sheep 

 have long been fattened thus in Britain, with a small sup- 

 plement of grain added. Such winter fattening, as it may 

 be termed, would only be feasible where the frost did not 

 hinder feeding on the turnips. There should be areas 

 where this ought to be practicable in the Gulf States, in 

 some of the western mountain valleys and in portions of 

 some of the Pacific States. It would, of course, be possi- 

 ble to cover over rows of roots for temporary use by 

 strewing earth over them with a plow, enough being 

 plowed out each day for present use. 



Wherever winter crops of cabbages can be grown for 

 the northern markets, crops of roots may also be grown 

 and grazed off where they grow. The question, there- 



