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 
eost 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 
corn, 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 
