1884.] 
405 
AM.ERl.CAls AGEICULT HEIST. 
Feeding and Care of Farm Animals. 
PRIZE ARTICLE. — BY “ A WESTERN FARIMER." 
Sheep. 
Sheep are profitable if well cared for, but unprofit¬ 
able when neglected. The rniddle-wooled sheep will 
give the best satisfaction to the general farmer. 
Warm, dry, clean sheds are essential. Allow no 
other stock to occupy them with the sheep. The 
feed-racks .should be under cover. Feed good hay 
of any kind, shelled corn and oats mixed, and 
chopped roots for winter. Cold weather causes 
the wool to grow rapidly, and a liberal supply of 
food must be provided so that there will be no 
“ starvation break ” in the staple to reduce its value. 
There is only disaster and loss in short feeding 
at any tinae. Bright oat straw cut short, dampened 
and primed with oat-meal, corn-meal, or oil-cake 
meal, is very fair feed in the absence of good bay. 
A strong, sucking lamb, will rapidly reduce in flesh 
the fattest ewe, unless she is well supplied with the 
best and richest food. Grass is best, of course, 
but in its absence, roots cut and mixed with corn- 
meal, and plenty of good blight hay, will suffice. 
Clover and mixed grasses make the best pasturage 
for sheep. With a hurdle fence, corners and patches 
of grass, green stuff, 
aftermath, etc., etc., can 
be profitably utilized, 
and the soil enriched. 
Supply the sheep with 
plenty of salt when at 
l'^ pasture. See that they 
I never lack water. A 
trough ten or twelve 
feet long, twelve inches 
deep and wide, with a 
'1'; 
1 
1 
I 
!i 
i 
ilt 
= 
U 
i 
Fig. 1.— ENB OP BACK. 
hinged cover having an opening at one end, will 
keep water clean. Scrub it out occasionally. 
Liaiiibs. 
The period of gestation is one hundred and fifty- 
four days. With plenty cf good shed-room and 
good feed, lambs may be dropped in April; other¬ 
wise May is the best month. See that lambs are 
properly suckled. The ewe’s teats are often closed 
with a gluey substance, which should be forced out 
and the milk started. After once starting, the 
lamb will take care of the rest. It is sometimes 
found necessary to feed lambs by hand. Have a 
can made for the purpose shaped like a tea-pot, 
holding about a quart, and with a raised ring at the 
end of the spout to hold a nipple. The milk 
should be fresh and about as warm as it comes 
from the cow. Feed a little at a time about every 
three hours the first two or three days. After that 
three times a day will do. Keep the lamb warm 
and dry, and when the weather is warm let it run out. 
With good care, sheep will alvvays be healthy. Be 
careful in changing from green to dry food, or from 
dry to green. It should be done gradually. A mix¬ 
ture of three ounces sulphur to one pound salt, kept 
in a dry phace where the sheep can always get at it, 
is an excellent preventive of costiveness, colic and 
similar troubles among the members of the flock. 
Sheep are always benefited by a change of pas¬ 
ture. If only one pasture is available, it would be 
best to divide it with a hurdle fence, and change 
from one division to the other, every two weeks. 
Figures 1 and 3 show the best feed rack for sheep 
and calves that we have seen. Figure 1 gives the 
end view, and figure 3 the side view. The rack is 
fourteen feet long; the posts a, a, are four by four 
inches, center-piece, x, is a two-inch plank ; cross¬ 
braces and side-pieces c, are two by four inches. The 
bottom is of inch boards. Hay-raek pickets are 
three inches wide. The ends arc boarded up as 
seen in figure 1. Six-inch boards, s, are nailed along 
the sides, making the feed-boxes five inches deep. 
The bottom is twelve inches above the ground. 
This rack is very strong, roomy and unexcelled for 
feeding hay, grain or cut feed. Figures 3 and 4 
show the mode of constructing good, cheap hurdle 
fences. Figure 3 is a finished length ; the lower 
piece is a twelve or fourteen-foot board, six inches 
wide. The middle bar is a strip two inches wide 
Fig. 3.— A SHEEP nUEULE FENCE. 
and one inch thick, on the top is a wire with very 
short barbs. The uprights are four-inch boards, 
sawed as shown at a. At & is a brace. The slot in 
the top receives the ends of the lengths of fence, 
and is ten Inches above ground. They are sawed 
out of si.x-inch boards as shown at c, with very 
little waste. Figure 4 represents another fence. 
The lower bar is two by three inches ; uprights, 
same as in figure 3, are let into it. It is supported 
on short legs one inch thick. 
Sheep should be carefully trimmed and tagged 
when sent to pasture. If their winter quarters are 
clean, they will not need much tagging. Lambs 
may be weaned when four to five months old. 
Keep them out of siglit of their mothers and feed 
them well. The ewes will dry cpiicker if upon 
short feed a few days. A dose of buck-shot, ad¬ 
ministered with a gun, is the best physic for sheep¬ 
Fig. 4.— ANOTHEB HUaULE. 
killing dogs. When a sheep dies from natural 
causes, as is frequently the case, do not charge it 
to the “ dog account,” as is too often the practice. 
A New Use for Peat Moss. 
The Peat Moss, or Sphagnum, which abounds in 
bogs, whortleberry swamps, and morasses in the 
Northern States, is now utilized as an excellent 
article for bedding in stables, as well as for pack¬ 
ing plants in eomiaereial nurseries. In the olden 
time, almost the only use made of sphagnum was 
to calk the cider press, when the months for mak¬ 
ing cider came around. Straw was much plentier 
then than now, and there was not much demand 
for it in cities and villages. No one dreamed 
that the day would ever come when the worthless 
moss, which creeps unobserved over cold swamps 
and bogs, as they fill up with vegetable decay 
from their borders, would ever have any commer¬ 
cial value. That period has come, and the peat 
moss crop is henceforth to be added to the valuable 
resources of many a farm, and gives value to laud, 
where ferns, brushes, and aquatic plants grow. 
The peat moss gathered, dried in the sun as thor¬ 
oughly as we dry hay for the barn, may be baled 
like hay or straw for the general market, or stored 
for bedding for home use. It is claimed for the ' 
commercial article, that it is cheaper than and 
superior to straw, or any other bedding, on account 
of its spongy, elastic, absorbing, and disinfecting j 
qualities. It absorbs nine times its own weight of 
moisture, retains the ammonia from the urine of 
the animals bedded with it, and is therefore ex¬ 
ceedingly valuable as a manure. These claims may 
be a little exaggerated. We have used for years 
sun dried, salt marsh sods, cut in six or eight inch 
cubes for bedding, and thought them hard to beat. 
But these are only available for shore farmers. The 
peat moss is much more widely distributed, and is 
within reach of a multitude of farmers, either 
upon their own or their neighbor’s premises. 
We are far too penurious in the use of bedding' 
or absorbents in the stable. It pays to stable 
horses, working oxen, and milch cows at night, 
the year round. The ordinary method of keeping 
cows in the open yard at night, or in the pasture, is 
wasteful, as one will discover by visiting the barn 
of a thrifty farmer who stables his cows and oxen, 
and uses dried peat or other absorbents, to be 
dropped into the barn cellar beneath when saturat¬ 
ed. The accumulation of this sheltered fertilizer 
is very large in the course of the pasturing season, 
and its value is seen in the rank growth of the 
crops where it is applied. We welcome any good 
article of bedding, especially one so widely dis¬ 
tributed and so easily procured as pieat moss. In 
the districts where it grows, the experiment of 
using it cannot be very costly, and it may lead to 
valuable results. Even if it should fail at first to 
prove a commercial crop, it could hardly fail to 
have a large home market. It would certainly 
save straw, which has a ready sale at remunerative ' 
prices in the vicinity of large towns and cities, and 
within easy reach of sea-ports and river landings. 
The moss that grows upon the surface of the peat 
and the bog meadow, is more easily gathered than 
the peat and muck that lie underneath. It makes 
a cleaner and softer bed, keeps the cattle drier, and 
probably retains the ammonia as well or better. 
Experiment with peat moss. Connecticut. 
How Frogs Help Farmers, 
IMr. C. M. Weed, of the Michigan Agricultural 
College, has recently examined the contents of the 
stomachs of eight common frogs (Rana halecina)., 
and finds undoubted evidence of tlie usefulness of 
frogs as destroyers of insects injurious to farm and 
garden crops. The average quantities of various 
insects and other substances determined by the ex¬ 
aminations are as follows: Insects, eighty per 
cent.; Spiders, five per cent.; Sow-bugs, one per 
cent., and the balance, vegetable matter of various 
kinds. Of the insects, over half are known to be 
injurious, and one-quarter are on the doubtful list. 
Much of the vegetable matter, (leaves, etc.,) was 
probably swallowed accidentally, along with the 
insects and spiders. Nearly all the stomachs con¬ 
tained grasshoppers, and in one they made up 
seventy-six per cent of the contents. The Carabid 
beetles formed a largo part of the food taken by 
some of the frogs. The Strawberry Crown Girdler 
was well represented, as also were several other 
pests of the garden. Much has been said for and 
against the frogs, the robin, and the crow, but 
there is no evidence of usefulness more positive 
than the finding of large numbers of injurious in¬ 
sects in the stomachs of these creatures. Under 
the dissecting knife, the frog is sure to have its 
right to live vindicated. By their good works we 
shall know them, and learn to protect our croaking' 
friends, as well as their relatives, the toads. 
Apples Stored in Pits. 
Apples may be stored in pits like potatoes, and 
if kept dry and frost-proof, will come out in fine 
condition in the spring. It is a fact, however, that 
apples thus stored, decay more rapidly when re¬ 
moved from the pits, than similar fruit stored in a 
dry house cellar with an even temperature, only a 
few degrees above the freezing point. When ap¬ 
ples are kept in pits for the spring market, they 
should be shipped as soon as possible after being 
removed, and not to a very distant city. Pitted ap¬ 
ples will need frequent assorting when exposed 
for sale. The apple crop this year is heavy, and 
only the best fruit should be stored in any manner. 
Let it bo remembered that fruit keeps best in a 
dry, cool, and dark room. Pits are inexpensive, 
and if well made, not large, the fruit separated 
from the earth by straw, and when opened, quick¬ 
ly marketed, there need be no great loss of fruit. 
