331 
AMERICAN A<Mi6uLTURIST. 
Sheep on Mowing Laflte 
time anil again ; have nursed them, and the result 
is, always, like what you see here.” 
He pointed out fifty or more deplorable looking 
dwarfs, that had never had any training, covered 
with scale-bugs, moss, dead limbs, and as barren 
of fruit as in December. They were in sward, 
and had apparently been so for years. 
“ And this you call nursing dwarf pears, do 
you 1 You have not learned the alphabet in this 
business. These trees are already spoiled.. 
Dwarf pears will not grow in sward land, nor in 
, poor land, with any amount of nursing. Make 
your ground rich, to begin with. Plant dwarfs 
two years from the bud, train them in pyramid 
style, give them alkaline washes twice a year, 
! keep the soil under generous cultivation, and in 
■ due time you will have fine trees, and pears fit 
i. for a king.” 
- - i -- 
Give us More Mutton. 
r Mutton, we said ; not that mass of thin, wiry 
rmusdlg, tough enough for raw hides, that is some- 
a times /offered to us in the shambles as the pro- 
i duct of ;a sheep’s carcase. This article, if de¬ 
signed for/tiller ropes, is admirably adapted to its 
^office ; hut iff destined for the table, it is a notable 
^perversion of .■the gifts of Providence. We have 
•quite enough, of /this article. 
IBut of mutton, well grown and stall-fed, the 
fat minely distributed/through the flesh, as well 
as upon ilhe outside, we Jiave too little. Of 
all meats, ns a.standand dish, commend us to this. 
The saddle, well stuffed, tnnJtes a splendid roast; 
the fore quarters are available for soups and 
stews ; and the leg, bojledxWith ^,piece of pork, 
and comely surroundings,of,cahhage, beets and 
potatoes, is the prince of tappers’ dinners. 
Steaks are no mistake, particularly,ff ,a_,gppd cook 
holds them—just long enough—over a .jy.opd.coal 
fire. In all the forms of approved cookery, ,it is a 
popular and wholesome dish—probably the most/ 
healthful of all meats for habitual use. 
It ought to be cheaper, and can be. The sheep 
i is a wool-bearing animal, and it is mainly for the 
i fleece that our flocks have been cultivated, until 
\ within twenty years. The South Downs and the 
' coarse wooled varieties—so large and so highly 
< esteemed for their flesh—have not been in favor. 
'.The article now is increasing in estimation, and 
ithere is inducement enough in all the older States 
’■to grow sheep, mainly for their flesh. Mutton, 
\we believe, can be produced at much less expense 
tthan either pork or beef. During the Summer, 
-they will thrive in pastures where cows would 
;grow thin, and in the Fall, and in Winter, they 
vwill give better returns in flesh, for the roots and 
; grain, than any other animal. 
Most of the sheep killed are simply grass-fed. 
^Stall-feeding improves the flesh as much as that 
-of beeves. It pays well to buy up a lot of South 
/Down grades, or other large bodied sheep, in the 
Fall, and fatten them for market. They want a 
• dry airy place, with good shelter against the 
-storms. The staple feed may be good clover hay, 
and turnips. Give, in addition—if you can get it 
_half a pound of oil cake and a pint of barley 
.per day, to each animal. They should have con¬ 
stant access to good, clean running water. 
•If you play with a fool alone, he will play with 
'you in society. 
Politeness is the just medium between cere- 
imony and rudeness. 
Lose no opportunity of doing a good action; 
ftime is short. 
'Little and often fills the purse. 
Good farmers differ in opinion as to the policy 
of Fall pasturing their mowing grounds, and as 
to the description of animals to do it with, when 
practiced. Some object to pasturing at all, assum¬ 
ing that the after-math is better to decay on the 
ground unfed, and serve as a top-dressing for 
the next crop. Others object to Fall feeding the 
meadows with large stock, as horses and horned 
eattle, by reason of their heavy tread, “potching” 
the ground, and injuring the roots of the grass, 
besides leaving them bare and cold during the 
Winter. Others, again, say that sheep, although 
light in the carcase, and not injuring the land by 
treading over it, cut the grass so close as to ma¬ 
terially lessen the coming crop. Now, they may 
all be right, so far as their own particular lands 
be affected, provided they have properly experi¬ 
mented with horses and cattle; hut in the writer’s 
own observation, Fall pasturage of sheep .on mea¬ 
dows of any kind has not injured them 4 •on the 
contrary, it has proved a decided advantage, after i 
many years practice. Our own farm is upland clay- i 
loam soil, chiefly, of uniform quality, well surface 
drained, and all suitable to the growth of the small 
grains, Indian corn, and the grasses of all kinds! 
grown in a Northern climate. The mowing lands 
are well seeded, and have a good bottom of timo¬ 
thy, red-top, blue-grass, and the clovers—red and 
white. Some years they alternate in their growth, 
some of the kinds predominating largely over the 
others. One year, the timothy is the principal 
grass, with a share of red-top and blue-grass ; i 
another year, the clovers push up heavily, and di- i 
vide the crop with the spire-grasses, more or less 
varying, from some cause or another not appar¬ 
ent at the time. We occasionally top-dress in the 
Fall of the year, applying chiefly to the meadows 
the manure of the barn-yards. But we Fall pas¬ 
ture them all, more or less, and with both cattle 
and sheep—keeping off the cattle when the ground 
is soft, to prevent treading in, or potching them. 
But as the sheep never injure them in such way, 
we let them range at will. Nor have we ever 
seen that the meadows are damaged by the 
sheep, even when fed bare; but, on the other 
hand, they are materially benefited by it. In the 
Summer of 18.57, we had a large mowing field, 
which had been laid down several years with 
timothy and clover, and had uniformly yielded a 
crop of about one and a-half tuns to the acre. 
That year the crop of timothy and blue-grass was 
light—less than a tun to the acre, on an average. 
Yet the after-growth was good, and we fed it close¬ 
ly with our sheep from the first of Septemoer 
untjl December; and last Spring, turned early 
lambing ewes upon it early in April, and kept 
them there till May. The past Summer, the field 
was full of red clover, timothy, and red-top, so 
lodged that our mowing machine would cut but 
little of it, and we had to use the scythes in cut¬ 
ting the grass. 
We have a smaller lot, of eight or nine acres, 
near the farm-house and barn, never plowed nor 
top-dressed, which we have used, for fifteen 
years, as a calf pasture, turning in our working 
teams, our stock rams, and such miscellaneous 
feeding as might be convenient. It gets no wash, 
or drainage from the yards, and during Winter, 
our sheep have run over it at will, and fed it so 
bare that not a blade of grass could be seen on 
it. Yet the grass grows ranker every year, it has 
a bottom close as wool, and we can cut two or 
three tuns of hay to the acre, if the stock are 
kept out of it. On the whole, our experience is 
[ decidedly in favor of sheep feeding on our mow¬ 
ing lands, and for these reasons: 
Sheep nibble the grass closer, and more uni¬ 
formly than any other animal, excepting the hoi se 
tihey drop their offal in small parcels, or uniform¬ 
ity,- d l ufi‘ng : th'e day, and at night always herd upon 
the Mj^lVei 1 parts of the ground, if it have any, 
where their deposits' can wash off upon the lower 
parts, while enough remains to fertilize the higher, 
and usually poorer parts Where they lie, thus re¬ 
storing, by way of manure, in a mb’re available 
shape for enriching purposes, the grass they con¬ 
sume, than if it were left to bleach, and freezfe,' 
and thaw, and decay upon the land. They Teavd 
the ground soft and light, with a close, smooth 
bottom, from which the succeeding young growth 
springs fresh and thick. 
If there be seeds in the grass, those seeds are 
distributed in their manure over the ground, in 
small parcels, so that it grows readily, and takes 
easy root in the soil, and thus keeps it continually 
re-seeded. As an instance of this, the highest 
side of one of our meadows had run out, or 
“bound out,” as the saying is. It lay partially 
sheltered by a wood. We laid up a few tempor¬ 
ary feeding pens—made of rails, cob-house fashion 
—along this high ground, and fed our sheep there 
for some weeks in the mild dry weather of Win¬ 
ter, occasionally moving the pens, to distribute 
the movements of the sheep more uniformly over 
the ground. In the Spring we gave the land so 
thorough a harrowing, that the sod could scarcely 
be seen; the next hay crop was a heavy one, 
and we have since cat the best grass of the field 
on the ground so fed over. That was as perfect a 
top-dressing as could be given ; the ground was 
thoroughly re-seeded, and put in the best possible 
condition, although the sheep had eaten closely 
every blade upon it, while bare o«f snow. 
Where sheep are kept, we know of no better 
method of top-dressing mowing grounds, than in 
dry Winter weather to have a lot of feeding cribs 
distributed on such parts of them as require it, turn 
in the sheep, carry out the fodder, and there feed 
them. They will not suffer from the cold, even 
if snow be on the ground, if not exposed to the ' 
storms ; but they will be all the healthier for the 
pure, dry air. This method saves labor, distri¬ 
butes the manure where most wanted, and is emi¬ 
nently good for the sheep—minding, always, that 
in cold and wet storms, the flock be driven in and 
sheltered at the barns. 
We seldom hear complaints, that close Fall 
feeding injures a common pasture. It is the ear¬ 
ly and close Spring cropping that does the mis¬ 
chief. So with Spring feeding of mowing lands. 
We never do that, as a common practice, unless 
there be a coat of after-math not fed off the pre¬ 
vious Autumn, and then only until the young 
grass begins to sprout. Grass intended for hay, 
requires every blade the soil can yield ; and the 
earlier, and stronger, and thicker they grow, so 
much heavier will be the crop, and better the 
quality of the hay. Every farmer knows how su¬ 
perior the hay of an old, well stocked meadow 
is, to that of a new seeding; or the feed of an old 
pasture to a new one—on good grass lands. Of 
land unadapted to the continued growth of grass¬ 
es, we are not speaking ; but in such as yield the 
cultivated grasses kindly, the less disturbance you 
give them by the plow, the better, provided they 
are fairly treated otherwise. 
--— — • —--- 
Little minds, like weak liquors, are soonest 
soured. 
Levity in manners is succeeded by laxity in 
principles. 
When flatterers meet, Satan goes to dinner— 
they will do his work. 
