DIVIDING FLOCKS FOE WINTBE. 209 



recommended, demand some expenditure of time and labor. 

 It would probably consume all the time of an active shepherd 

 properly to take care of four hundred and fifty or five hundred 

 ewes and the number of rams required to serve them, during 

 the ordinary coupling period of thirty-five or forty days : and 

 if he had but two hundred and fifty or three hundred to take 

 care of, it would still consume all his time. But the labor of 

 one or two men for that period, would be a very trifling 

 matter compared with the benefits thus secured. These 

 directions are not, of course, intended for the owners of 

 cheap, common flocks who are aiming at no important 

 improvements, and who would regard $25 an enormous price 

 to pay for a ram, and who oftener do not pay more than $5.* 

 But for the last ten if not twenty years preceding the late rise 

 in the price of sheep, those Merino and English rams which 

 breeders regard as fii-st class ones, have sold for at least $100 

 a piece — frequently for twice or tlyee times that amount, 

 and, as already remarked, no property is more precarious. 



When the period fixed on for coupling is over, it is 

 generally decidedly best to separate the rams from the flock 

 and keep them separated until that period again recurs. If 

 rams are allowed to run with the ewes either in winter or 

 summer, there is always a chance of having lambs come at 

 very imseasonable times. Eating at the same rack or trough 

 in winter with horned rams, is dangerous to breeding ewes. 

 If the former are cross the danger is great ; but even if not, 

 the ram, in making his way to the rack through a crowd of 

 ewes, is liable to inflict unintentional injury on those in 

 advanced stages of pregnancy. 



Dividing Flocks foe Wintee. — In latitudes where 

 sheep are fed dry feed, and are kept confined to stables and 

 small yards in winter, even Merinos wUl not bear herding 

 together in large numbers. They should be divided into 

 separate lots before, and preparatory to, going into winter 

 quarters. It is better that these lots be made as small as 

 convenience permits, and not exceed 100 each. The sheep in 

 each should be as nearly uniform in size and strength as 

 practicable, or otherwise the stronger wiU rob the weaker, 

 both at the rack and trough, and will jostle them about 



* I could illustrate the curious kind of economy sometimes exhibited in regard to 

 rams, by naming an individual residing on the borders of this (Cortland) county, 

 who has within the last five years allowed 60 good ewes owned by him to go without 

 the ram one year, rather than pay $10 for a decent one, which was offered him at that 

 piice 1 



