270 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
may be profitably cultivated every year express¬ 
ly for this purpose. If this be not on hand, corn 
from the field may be fed in the same way once 
a day. But swine need something more than 
green stuff however nutritious, to make them 
fatten rapidly. 
The cooking of food is much more economical 
than is generally supposed, especially upon the 
farm, where fuel costs little but the labor of pre¬ 
paring it. We think about one third of the value 
of all the grains usually fed to swine, is saved by 
cooking. A boiler or box for steaming is indis¬ 
pensable in every well arranged swill house. In 
this the meal may be cooked and thoroughly 
mixed with the roots and other vegetables. The 
meal absorbs large quantities of water, is more 
highly relished by the pigs, and is more perfectly 
digested. Numerous experiments fully prove 
the economy of cooking the food under ordinary 
circumstances. Some claim that they can make 
pork for less than three cents a pound in this way. 
A dairy farmer of this State made one year 4,227 
pounds of pork. The feed with which he did it, 
was 4,127 pounds of corn and oat meal at $1.50 
a hundred, 470 pounds of shorts at 75 cents, 147 
bushels of potatoes at 16 cents, all of which were 
cooked, and half an acre of green peas worth say 
$15 ; making the total cost of feed $103.95, or 
not quite two and a half cents per pound for the 
pork. The value of the whey and sour milk was 
not reckoned. This and the labor of feeding, with 
the fuel for cooking, are very properly balanced 
against the manure they made. There can be 
no doubt that cooking the food pays well. 
A dry, warm place for sleeping is another im¬ 
portant item in keeping swine thrifty. They 
should have a good sty with roof and board floor, 
and plenty of straw so that they can keep them¬ 
selves clean. With these conditions pork can 
De made very fast, and the sty will be found to 
pay as well as any part of the farm arrangements. 
Connecticut. 
- » ' to ' - 
Sheep Husbandry..IV. 
WINTER TREATMENT. 
The favorite method with the careless farmer 
is to feed them at the stack with his young cat¬ 
tle and colts, or let them take their chance in the 
open yard with the cows and oxen. Here they 
are hooked about, scared from their food, and 
not unfrequently maimed or killed. It is thought 
that sheep can live on the refuse of the yard. 
But the man who means to make sheep profita¬ 
ble, must have a place for them and attend to 
their feeding. The Winter is the most critical 
time with them, and many a flock is more than 
decimated by neglect. The crows have rich 
pickings of mutton, and the boys hard pickings of 
pulled wool, along in the warm days of the open¬ 
ing Spring. 
After the snow begins to fly, and the Winter 
has fairly set in, we are decidedly in favor of 
keeping sheep in the yards provided for them. It 
is true there will be open spells when they might 
pick something from the pastures, but the feed¬ 
ing at this season is bad for the roots of the gras¬ 
ses, and not favorable to the thrift of the flock. 
The selection of a location for the sheep yards 
and sheds, is a matter of very great importance. 
Whether you feed them for stock or for the butch¬ 
er, you must have a dry location—if not naturally 
so, made such by drainage. If the ground is wet, 
your flock will soon be in trouble. Much of the 
prejudice against confining sheep to narrow quar¬ 
ters arises from the neglect of this precaution. 
The sheep have the foot ail, and contract diseases 
Ui wet yards and sheds, and the evil is charged 
to close confinement. The fact is, the sheep is 
naturally gregarious, and if favored with a dry 
bed and plenty of fresh air, will thrive in small 
enclosures quite as well as other domestic ani¬ 
mals. 
One of our most successful farmers, who some¬ 
times feeds five hundred at a time for the mark¬ 
et, confines them to sheds either with a small 
yard in front, or no yard at all. Sometimes sev¬ 
enty five are shut up in a shed twenty one by 
thirty six feet, with a yard about eight feet wide 
on the southern front. But in this case, the shed 
is well furnished with absorbents for the manure, 
and is kept littered with straw, and at the back 
side, a board a foot wide swings upon hinges, so 
as to keep up a thorough ventilation. With this 
care the flock thrives and lays on flesh as kindly 
as if in larger quarters ; without it they would 
do poorly with any amount of room. Sheep 
must be kept clean and free of foul air. They 
love the dry atmosphere and the free breezes of 
the hill tops. 
If yards are allowed, some provision should be 
made for confining them to the sheds in stormy 
weather. It takes a great deal of food to dry a 
thoroughly soaked fleece in winter, to say noth¬ 
ing of its bearing upon the health of the animal. 
It is much better that this food should go to form 
muscle and fat. The sheds in all cases where it 
is practicable, should open toward the South, so 
that the Winter sun may come in upon them as 
much as possible. The sun has a wonderful in¬ 
fluence upon the animal economy. In small sheds 
and yards, a less amount of straw is needed for 
litter, and the manure is more easily managed— 
an important consideration. 
The sheds must be furnished with racks and 
troughs, so that they can be fed with hay, grain, 
or roots, at the option of the owner. There 
should be room enough for all the sheep to feed 
at once. 
* A rack or feeding box of convenient size for 
use and for moving, may be made as follows : 
For the posts, take pieces of any good hard wood, 
2 by 2£ inches, six in number ; one for each cor¬ 
ner, and for the middle of the sides. For sid¬ 
ing and ends, take boards twelve feet in length, 
twelve inches wide for the bottom, and eight 
inches for the top. This will give you an open¬ 
ing often inches for the heads of the sheep, if 
the posts are thirty inches in. length. But they 
can readily be made a little longer or shorter, 
according to the size of the sheep you wish to 
keep. For the bottom, take three narrow strips 
of board, one at each end, and one in the middle. 
Upon these, fasten a board twelve inches wide, 
running lengthwise through the middle. This is 
for the bottom of the trough. Upon each side of 
this, put in a board upon a bevel, extending to 
the sides of the box. This will make the bottom 
dishing at the sides, and tight, for holding grain, 
meal, roots, or any thing else you wish to give 
them. This box may be made with wooden pins, 
or nails, but the best fastening is stout screws, 
about two and a half inches in length. In the 
moving about, the boxes are subjected to a con¬ 
siderable strain, and screws will be found the 
cheapest in the end. Such a box as this will 
accommodate about twenty large sheep. It is 
easily turned over and cleaned w ithout sweeping, 
and readily put away for the Summer. This kind 
of feeding apparatus has hecn in use in this coun¬ 
try for at least forty years, and is, on the whole, 
the handiest contrivance we have ever met with. 
It will pay any man who keeps sheep, to have 
enough of these made to accommodate his whole 
flock. In the common slovenly way of feeding 
upon the ground, more fodder will.be wasted than 
would pay for the boxes. The sheep is a cleanly 
animal, and its tastes should be consulted. 
Selection of Sheep for fattening .—Few farmers 
raise the sheep they feed for the market. The 
best districts for raising sheep are not always 
the best for preparing them for the butcher. The 
mountainous regions that yield abundance of 
grass, are not so good generally for grain and 
roots. The farmers who live near good markets, 
or whose farms are well adapted to grain and 
roots, can fatten sheep to better advantage than 
those who live in a more broken country. But 
much of the success of feeding depends upon 
skillful buying. The refuse, cheap sheep of light 
weight, are not the ones to be fed with most 
profit. As a rule, it takes no more food to finish 
off for the butcher a sheep weighing a hundred 
and fifty pounds, than one of a hundred pounds ot 
less. They will gain much faster, and give you 
more money for the food consumed. The same 
constitutional habit that has made them thrifty in 
the light hill pastures, will make them gain fast¬ 
er in the feeding yards. Therefore purchase the 
larger sheep, even if you have to give more for 
them in proportion to their size than for small 
ones. 
Feeding .—The practice of skillful farmers dif¬ 
fers considerably here, both as to time and the 
articles of food consumed. Some feed thrice 
daily, others four times ; viz., early in the morn¬ 
ing, at 11, at 1, and at evening. Whatever times 
are selected, the feeder should be on the spot at 
the appointed hour. Regularity in feeding is a 
prime element of success in the fattening of all 
domestic animals. 
In the change of the flock from the pastures to 
the yards, care should be taken not to over feed 
them with grain at first. The quantity ol 
meal, grain, or oil cake, may be gradually in¬ 
creased from a handful up to a pound for each 
sheep daily, beyond which quantity it is not or¬ 
dinarily profitable or safe to go. Too high feed¬ 
ing with meal or oily food, sometimes leads to 
sudden death, and the butcher loses his mutton, 
and you lose your profits. 
The sheep, as well as any other domestic ani¬ 
mal, loves a variety of food, and will do much bet¬ 
ter upon three sorts daily, than upon anyone 
Whatever bill of fare be made out for them, clean 
sweet hay should always be the staff of life 
They are very fond of turnips, and these may 
form a part of the daily food, both in the Fall, be¬ 
fore they come to the yards, and while they are 
in confinement. Carrots, beets, and other roots 
are also highly relished. Some one of these will 
profitably form one of the daily meals. For fat¬ 
tening, they also need some kind of oily food, as 
oil cake, cotton seed cake, or Indian meal, or corn. 
They relish almost all the grains, and these may 
be fed to advantage where the farmer raises 
them, or can buy cheaply. The straw of the 
grains, oats, wheat, and rye, if run through a cut¬ 
ter and mixed with a little oats, or meal, can be 
profitably fed. Beans arc an excellent feed, and 
are more greedily eaten by sheep, than by other 
kinds of stock. They need neither boiling nor 
grinding. Indeed, there seems to be no profit in 
grinding any of the grains for this animal, so per¬ 
fect is its mastication. 
Sheep Manure .—One great advantage of putting 
sheep under sheds in the Winter, is the large 
quantity of manure you are able to make by the 
process. You can use all the muck that is de¬ 
sirable, without any danger of miring the sheep, 
as is the case in large open yards. The whole 
area of the shed and small yard attached, may 
be covered to the depth of a foot or more with 
