398 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



the end of his lamb feeding was near, when he 

 turned his attention to producing an abundance of 

 alfalfa. He found that as good lambs could be 

 made with alfalfa hay and ear corn only as he had 

 been making with shelled corn or ground corn and 

 oilmeal and wheat bran. The alfalfa-fed lambs 

 developed a little slower, but made the gain much 

 cheaper and with a lessened death rate. For some 

 years the cost of producing lamb mutton on alfalfa 

 hay and ear corn averaged about $3.50 per hundred 

 pounds. In recent years, owing to the advanced 

 cost of corn and alfalfa hay, the cost has increased 

 to about $4.50 or $5 per hundred, making no al- 

 lowance for labor. 



It is the present practice to give the lambs a 

 longer feeding time, buying them in November, giv- 

 ing little but alfalfa for a month, then a trifle of 

 oorn, gradually increasing until, in March, they 

 may get nearly as much corn as they will eat. At 

 no times are they fed all the corn they will eat, nor 

 more alfalfa than they will eat clean, saving that 

 some coarser stems are allowed to be rejected. In 

 April or early in May the lambs are sold and they 

 have topped the markets for years, and are watched 

 for by buyers in Buffalo. 



The manure made by these lambs, fed under shel- 

 ter, is returned to the land where corn is to be 

 planted, usually an old alfalfa sod. After one crop 

 of corn, or at most two crops, the land is sowed back 

 to alfalfa again. This manure is very rich and by 



