FATTENING SHEEP IN WINTER. 245 



straw cut quite green and cured tei-ight, are highly relished by 

 sheep. I had rather have them (particularly if thrashed with 

 a flail so that a few small green kernels remain in the ends of 

 the heads,) than hay in the situation ia which it is frequently 

 cured for use. Wheat straw ranks next, among the common 

 varieties of straw. Sheep do not relish it, and will not eat it 

 very well if they get any hay. But when confiiied to it and 

 grain, they learn to eat it and thrive on it. They must not, 

 however, be compelled to eat it as close as oat and barley 

 straw. Ripe rye straw, unless cut fine and mixed with meal, 

 is a dry, harsh, unprofitable and wholly unacceptable food - to 

 sheep. All straws are eaten much better by them when fresh 

 thrashed and fed frequently in small quantities. 



Corn-stalks are contained in neither of the preceding 

 tables of nutrition. When cut and cured bright, before frost, no 

 feed is better relished by sheep than the leaves and some finer 

 portions of the stalks : and they thrive • admirably on them. 



Pea-haulm, if cut and cured green, is highly valuable 

 and is highly relished by sheep ; but when not harvested until 

 dried up and dead — according to the more common mode — 

 it is utterly worthless for them. 



In seasons of great scarcity of hay and straw, sheep have 

 been repeatedly and successfully- wintered by feeding them 

 almost exclusively on grain. Such a "hay-famine" occurred 

 in the best sheep region of Vermont, in the winter of 1860-61, 

 occasioned by a severe drouth the preceding summer. Flock- 

 masters who were determined to keep well at all hazards, fed 

 their sheep a pound (or quart) of oats per head, with such 

 quantities of hay, straw, etc., as they could obtain. In better 

 Lidian com growing regions, a pound of corn a day is given 

 under like circumstances. 



Fattening Sheep in Winteb. — The present ordinary 

 mode of fattening sheep in winter in N"ew York, is thus 

 described in a letter to me froni John Johnston, Esq.^ of 

 Geneva, New York, who is one of the oldest and most 

 experienced feeders, as weU as graia farmers in the United 

 States : 



" I generally buy my sheep in October. Then I have good 

 pasture to put them on, and they gain a good deal before 

 winter sets in, I have generally had to put them in the yards 

 about the first of December. For the last 23 years I have 

 fed straw the fii'st two or two and a half months, a pound of 

 oil cake, meal or grain to each sheep. When I commence 



