AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
Farm, GrarcLen, and. Honseliolcl. 
"AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AN1> MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.»-Was«ixgk>x. 
ORAXGG JUDO & CO., f 
PUBLISHERS AND PROPRIETORS. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842. 
Office, 2 45 BROADWAY. ) Published also iu German at $1.50 a Year. UCopiesfor $5 ; 10 for $12; 20nr more, $leach. 
Entered according to Act of Congress in llarcb., 1369, by Omsou Jodd & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New- York. 
i' $1.50 PEE ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBER, 15 CENTS. 
VOLUME XXVIII.— No. 4. 
NEW YORK, APRIL, 1869. 
NEW SERIES— No. 267. 
[COPYRIGHT SECURED.] 
CHANGE OF PASTURE . — Drawn BY EDWIN Forbes. — Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
It is an interesting question, regarding the 
care of sheep at the West, how far the*Spanish- 
American negligent practice, British careful- 
ness, or the native American " easy-go-lucky " 
mixture of care and neglect, will prevail. In the 
scene before us we have a shepherd with his flock 
and doubtless well-trained dog in an American 
landscape. In this our artist truthfully repre- 
sents not only the facts on hundreds of farms, but 
the spirit of the times. A change of pasture, 
even though the grass maybe thick and abund- 
ant, is of great benefit to all kinds of grazing 
animals ; and when land is carrying anywhere 
near a full stock, the benefit to the pasturage is 
quite as great as to the animals. A great por- 
tion of the herbage of a pasture becomes dis- 
tasteful to the stock from being trodden and 
lain upon, or otherwise defiled, and it requires a 
week or more of time in connection with the 
action of dews and rains to purify it. Young 
grass shoots up among the old spears, and a 
fragrance and flavor is added to it which leads 
cattle to eat it with much greater relish, even 
though it has had but a few days' respite. Every 
farmer, of a moderate range of experience, has 
observed the advantages coming from a change 
of fodder in the winter, and, if possible, he va- 
ries the feed of his sheep by giving, occasion- 
ally, oats in the sheaf, corn fodder, and hemlock 
boughs, as a change from wheat straw and ha}'. 
The herbage of different pastures does not consist 
of precisely the same species of plants ; the soil 
varies, and hence the same kinds of plant exhibit 
slight differences in their chemical constitution; 
besides, the waters vary, and for these reasons 
a change of pasture is also a change of diet. 
So the needs of the system are better supplied, 
and, besides, the mere variation produces favor- 
able effects upon the digestion of the animals. 
