32-i 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Septem-ber, 
plant of restoring the fertility of their wheat 
fields, and securing as large crops as the virgin 
soil yielded. Arrange to sow more clover. 
Walks and Talks oa the Farm— No. 57. 
One of our most extensive stock dealers offers 
to furnish me 500 good Merino sheep to fatten 
this coming winter at $1 a head. He thinks 
sheep will be lower this fall than ever before 
known, and that it will be a good time to buy 
good three-year-old wethers to fatten. "You 
will double your money before next March." 
No doubt this is so. But 1 would a great deal 
rather double the money on a lot of $5 sheep 
than on a lot costing but $1 a head. In the one 
case 3 r ou get $5 for the feed, and in the other 
only $1. The one will pay very well, and the 
other will not pay at all. And yet you " double 
your money " in both cases. 
Last winter Mr. Suriau Winue, of Albany 
County, fattened 901 sheep, and sold them in the 
spring for $12,049.15 net, an average of $13.37 
per head. Mr. W. made some very interesting 
experiments to ascertain which are the most 
profitable sheep to fatten, Leicesters or Merinos. 
He selected 60 Canada Leicesters and Gl Meri- 
nos, and placed them in two separate lots, giv- 
ing to each precisely the same food and general 
treatment. - The experiment continued from 
February 10th to March 28th, or 46 days. 
February 10th, the 00 Leicesters weighed 8,870 pounds. 
March 2Sth, the 00 Leicesters weighed 9,878 pounds. 
Gain in 40 days, 1,008 pounds. 
Total cost of feed (hay, grain, oil-meal, roots, &c.), for 
the 40 days, $174.43. 
February 10th, the 61 Merinos weighed 0,000 pounds. 
March 28th, the 61 Merinos weighed 7,3S9 pounds. 
Gain i„ JKrW*. ma , 1= 
Total cost of food as above, $144.78. 
Both lots were sold March 31st. The Leices- 
ters brought 10 a U cents per pound, live weight, 
and the Merinos 10'/ 2 cents. These are the 
facts as published in the Albany Cultivator, the 
editor of which says: 
"A calculation in simple proportion will show 
that if the coarse wools gained 1,003 pounds at 
a cost of $174.43 for feed, the gain of the fine 
wools at the same ratio, upon an expense of 
$144.78, should have been 836 pounds, whereas 
it was only 480 pounds, or a little more than 
one-half a proportionate amount as compared 
with cost. Compared with live weight Feb. 
10th, the coarse wools gained ll 1 1 3 per cent in 
the 46 days, the fine wools not rpiite 7 per cent." 
The results would have been more satisfac- 
tory had the experiment commenced earlier. 
Six and a half weeks is too short a period. 
. The average weight of the Leicesters Febru- 
ary 10th was 147 3 | 4 pounds, and March 28th 
164 1 | a pounds, showingagain of lG' J |i pounds, or 
a little over 2 1 1 = pounds per week. The average 
weight of the Merinos February 10th was 113'ji 
pounds, and March 28th 121 pounds, showing a 
gain of 7 3 | 4 pounds each, or l 1 )., pounds per week. 
In proportion to live weight the two lots con- 
sumed very nearly the same amount of food, as 
judged by its money value. The actual weight 
of the food consumed is not given. Thus the 
average weight of the Leicesters during the ex- 
periment was 9,371 pounds, and they consumed 
$174.43 worth of food, or $1.86 per 100 pounds. 
The average weight of the Merinos was 7,149 
pounds, and they consumed $144.78 worth of 
food, or $2.02 per 100 pounds. It will thus be 
seen that the Merinos consumed a little more 
food in proportion to live weight than the Lei- 
cesters, but the difference is not very striking. 
The food of the Leicesters cost 44 cents per 
week per head, that of the Merinos 36 cents. 
Each pound of increase cost with the Leicesters 
17'| 2 -cents, and with the Merinos 29 cents. 
It is very evident that if we depend for our 
profit merely on the gain in weight, fattening 
sheep in winter will not pay. In England 
lean or store sheep sold for the purpose .of fat- 
tening usually command as much per pound as 
they sell for per pound when fat, and from the 
fact that the business is carried on to an im- 
mense extent we must conclude that it is, direct- 
ly or indirectly, profitable. The turnip crop 
gives the English farmers a large supply of green 
food in winter at a comparatively cheap rate, 
and it is owing to this crop and to the rich 
manure obtained from its consumption, in con- 
nection with oil-cake and clover hay, that they 
sell choice mutton at cheaper rates than we can. 
Fattening sheep in winter has usually beeu 
quite profitable in this country. This is owing 
to the fact that comparatively few farmers had 
sufficient courage to feed enough grain or oil- 
cake to make their sheep really fat, and those 
who selected the right kind of sheep and fed 
them liberally monopolized the business. How 
long this state of things will continue remains 
to be seen. 
John Johnston has been a very successful 
feeder of Merino sheep. He buys three and 
four-year-old wethers in the fall, feeds them 
liberally all winter, and sells them about the 1st 
of March, getting good pay for the food, a large 
pile of rich manure, and often a considerable 
sum of money for his trouble. But, of course, 
if every pound of Merino mutton produced 
during the winter cost 29 cents, he must buy 
his sheep at a cheap rate in the fall and sell them 
high in the spring. He contends that he can 
make more money a3 things are in fattening 
Merinos than in fattening Leicesters. He is prob- 
ably right; but what he makes somebody else 
loses. It is evident that the Leicesters will pro- 
duce more mutton for the food consumed than 
the Merinos. 
The profit of fattening sheep in winter depends 
much more on getting an additional cent or two 
per pound in the spring than most farmers real- 
ize. If Mr. Winne's sheep had sold for 8 cents 
per pound, instead of over ten cents,he must have 
bought them at very low rates to have made 
any money by the transaction. Thus if his 
Leicesters weighed 100 pounds in the fall, and 
he fed them for 20 weeks, they would then 
weigh 150 pounds, which, at 8 cents a pound, 
would bring $12. The food costs 44 cents a 
week, or $S.80 ; so that, to get his money back, 
he must buy Leicester sheep weighing 100 
pounds for $3.20, or less than 3'\, cents per 
pound, aud then depend wholly on the manure 
for his profit. With the Merinos, if they 
weighed 80 pounds in the fall, and increased 
l'| 4 pounds per week for 30 weeks, they would 
then weigh 105 pounds, which, at 8 cents per 
pound, would bring $8.40. The food at 36 
cents per week would cost $7.20. So that the 
sheep must be bought for $1.20 per head, or 
l'|a cents per pound. If the sheep sold for only 
7 cents per pound in the spring we should have 
to buy a good 80-pound Merino wether in the 
fall for 15 cents, in order to come out even. If 
the sheep sold for 6 cents per pound in the 
spring, or $6.30 each, and the food cost, as it did 
in Mr. 'Winne's experiments, $7.20, those who 
are desirous of getting rid of their sheep must 
give some enterprising feeder 90 cents apiece to 
take them off their hands ! — To go into the 
business of fattening sheep in the winter, there- 
fore, because sheep are now cheap, and because 
"you can double your money," would be all 
very well if it did not cost anything to feed them. 
I told you that our cows were very thin this 
spring when turned out to grass, owing to the 
fact that we had been feeding corn-fodder up to 
about the 1st of March, and milking them until 
within a few weeks of calving. We fed them a 
little corn meal mixed with water, but they did 
not eat it very well, aud we gave it up after a 
few days. Contrary to my expectations our 
cows have never before done so well. 
I have a 10-acre field, that, when I bought the 
farm, was occupied with nursery trees, and had 
been for four years. After the trees had been 
taken off I sowed it to peas, and top-dressed it 
with three or four hundred pounds of superphos- 
phate and other artificial manure per acre. The 
peas were the largest crop I ever saw grow. 
We had some forty-four large two-horse loads 
from the ten acres. The land was full of this- 
tles, but the rank growth of peas smothered 
them out. After the peas were off we plowed 
the land twice and drilled in wheat, top-dress- 
ing it with Lawes' wheat manure that I got 
from England. The wheat was a fair crop, say 
twenty-five bushels per acre. It was seeded 
down witli clover alone, and after the wheat 
was off, such a growth of clover that fall I have 
rarely seen. I pastured it down quite bare in 
October and November, which is perhaps not a 
good practice, but I was short of feed. At any 
rate, the next spring the clover started early and 
produced an immense crop of hay. It was then 
allowed to grow up, and was cut for seed. This 
spring the clover grew almost as vigorously as 
before. We have kept on it, so far, eleven head 
of cattle, eight sheep, a dozen or more pigs, and 
for several weeks eight horses. The pasture, 
although we are having a very severe drouth, is 
still green and abundant. The Deacon was 
speaking about it this morning. lie thinks it 
must be "that stuff you put on to it," and lie is 
undoubtedly right, though I have no doubt that 
the fact of the land having been cultivated for 
five years with young apple trees has something 
to do with it. Elwanger aud Barry tell me that 
a dozen years ago it was almost impossible to 
induce a farmer to rent land for nursery pur- 
poses, but now they are offered it every day. 
Farmers find that when land has been kept in 
small trees and receives good cultivation for four 
or five years it afterwards produces splendid 
crops. It is another illustration of the fact that 
"tillage is manure." 
Our cows are nothing to brag about, and have 
nothing but this heavily stocked pasture, and yet 
we get from seven cows — one of which is far- 
row — about forty-five pounds of butter a week. 
This week, though the weather is very hot and 
pastures generally are drying up, we made 43 
pounds. This, of course, is nothing remarkable, 
but still for a run-down farm it is encouraging. 
Nobody needs a little encouragement more 
than the man who undertakes to renovate a run- 
down farm, especially if he is known "to write 
for the papers ;" and if, as I made up my mind 
to do, he tells of his failures as well as his suc- 
cesses, he may be excused if his mind dwells on 
the first indications of any decided improve- 
ment that he may see on the farm. In this li<rht 
I think no one will blame me for saying that 
my crops this year are far better than ever be- 
fore. We have drawn in about one hundred 
and forty loads of capital hay, and have still 
twenty acres of timothy to cut. This is on the 
old "stump lot" that we cleared up last fall, 
and plowed for the first time. I intended to 
have cut it before, but wheat harvest came on 
so rapidly and men demanded such exorbitant 
wages that I concluded to let it remain till after 
harvest and cut it for seed. My operations in 
