FALL TEEATMEHT OF BEEBDING EWES. 203 



stable or barn-yard in winter, between recruiting up and 

 getting into' condition two dozen, or two hun^-ed lean, 

 reduced sheep. The little handful of " natives " choosing 

 every morsel of their food over one or two hundred acres of 

 land, through the summer, had high condition to fall back on, 

 in the pinch of the early winter ; and when put into the barn- 

 yards with the cattle and young horses, Ishey stiU chose all the 

 best morsels of the hay ^-robbing the latter animals — so 

 that they not only made a shift to live, biit usually got round 

 to the next spring in tolerable order. True, when let out to 

 grass again, their condition began to change so rapidly that 

 they frequently shed oS nearly all their wool — so that many 

 of them had not half a pound a piece at shearing ; and those 

 which escaped this were very likely to have their fleeces half 

 ruined by cotting. But what of all this ? This was the way 

 things were done in those days ! 



Brought up under such traditions, many of our older 

 farmers who consider it highly essential as well as profitable 

 to give their cows, horses and other animals, artificial and 

 extra feed a month before the winter sets in, consider every 

 pound of fodder bestowed on sheep at that time, so much 

 taken from the profits which these animals are bound, under 

 all circumstances, to yield to their owners — a total loss! 

 A more absurd and pernicious notion Could not prevail. If 

 sheep could withstand the efieeta of such treatment with as 

 little danger to life as the horse or cow, it would still occasion 

 a much greater proportionable loss in their products.* But 

 they can not. The former are capable of being raised at any 

 period of the year, from the lowest condition of leanness, 

 without danger. The muscular and vascular systems of the 

 sheep are so much weaker, that if they become reduced below 

 a certain point in winter— and if they herded together in 

 considerable numbers — - their.restoration to good condition is 

 always difficult and doubtful, and, in imfavorable winters, 

 impracticable. Their progress thenceforth is frequently about 

 as follows: If fed liberally with grain, their appetites become 

 poor and capricious,; or it' they eat freely it is followed by 



* I urge no "petting" or' enervating system of treatment. I have not five times 

 within thirty years fed hay_or grain, or brought in the body of my store slieep from 

 their summer pastures, before the fall of snow — which generally occurs in this 

 climate not far frofli the first of December, But I should have done it in all cases, if 

 they had not sufficient feed in their pastures. In this respect I would put them, on 

 precisely the same-footing with cows and horses. And 1 "^ould sooner limit the feed 

 of either of them in the vrinter, than daring the month preceding winter. Unless the 

 fall feed was nnnsnally abundant and good, I have always fed my lambs and crones 

 pumpkins, turnip tops, grain, etc., and a little hay as soon as they would eat it. 



