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AMERICAN A OHIO UJLTU1UST. 
RURAL SURROUNDINGS. 
NUMBER III.—THE SHEEP. 
Our small or suburban farmers rarely keep 
sheep. There are some difficulties in the 
way, we admit. Still, they can be kept, and 
profitably too, with a little pains. Any dry 
land with sweet pasturage is suitable for the 
sheep, and no animal better repays the care 
and food which is devoted to them. Their 
wool is valuable always, as a commercial 
article, if not for household consumption, 
and no flesh is more palatable, healthful, nu¬ 
tritious and timely at the country table, from 
the lamb at two months to the mature wether 
at two years of age. The sheep is a timid 
creature, fearful of everything, even to the 
smallest dog, or a cat, and wherever kept, 
they should be secured from annoyance or 
fright from anything that may worry or de¬ 
stroy them. Their main enemy in compact, 
thickly-settled neighborhoods, is the dog. 
Heedless people are very apt to keep a 
worthless cur or two running wild about 
their premises, and the creatures, in their 
nocturnal excursions, are quite apt to light 
on the first sheep-fold at hand, and commit 
a most reckless slaughter. Such outrages 
will ever be the case until these lawless per¬ 
sons learn better than to keep the nuisances, 
or the laws are made stringent enough to 
punish the dog-owners in a round penalty 
for the ravages they commit. Even, how¬ 
ever, with such pests in the neighborhood, 
on a well regulated farm of a few acres only, 
sheep may be kept to advantage. 
We once knew a retired sea-captain who 
had some twenty acres of land, on which he 
resided, immediately adjoining the principal 
street of a very considerable New-England 
town, and many years kept a small flock of 
beautiful Merinos in his paddocks, Winter 
and Summer. They were always in sight 
from the street while in pasture, and grazed 
as securely and peacefully just over the 
stout stone wall which separated them from 
the continual passers-by, as if they were so 
many cows. They had a close shed where 
they could be fastened in every night, and 
no accident occurred in the many years that 
we knew them. They were a hobby of the 
liberal and wealthy gentleman who kept 
them, and in fine weather he was every day 
more or less among them They were gen¬ 
tle as so many chickens, and would leap and 
play around him, and follow his footsteps 
wherever he chose to lead them. Being 
choice specimens of their race, they were 
attractive to all sheep-admirers who passed, 
and the country farmers were always ready 
to buy his surplus rams and ewes to add to 
and improve their own flocks at home ; and 
thus, while indulging his hobby, regardless 
of profit, the sheep really paid him more 
than their expenses. We mention this in¬ 
stance to show that sheep may be kept al¬ 
most anywhere with land enough and a little 
care. 
As utility and economy, however, are to 
be connected with pretty much all of the 
animal kind kept on our country places, in 
selecting our sheep, we should keep those 
varieties only which are best suited to the 
uses of the table. The common long-legged 
gaunt-bodied things which many farmers 
keep are worthless for the purposes we are 
discussing. They have little good flesh on 
their bones, their wool is of small value, and 
theyare so restless and mischievous in jump¬ 
ing that they are little less than a nuisance 
anywhere. They certainly have no business 
on a well-kept place, and if nothing better 
than such brutes can be had, we would have 
no sheep at all. Yet there is no difficulty in 
getting sheep suitable for table use* and of 
quiet habits, easy to keep, and beautiful ob¬ 
jects to look upo,n. These are of the Long- 
wooled varieties, passing under the denomi¬ 
nations of Cotswold, Leicester, Lincoln, or 
other foreign local names ; or the Middle- 
wooled, commonly called Southdown. The 
long-wooled varieties are chiefly of one dis¬ 
tinctive breed, with large bodies, compactly 
built, taking on heavy carcasses of flesh of 
extraordinary fatness, with a heavy fleece of 
long and rather coarse wool. They are clean^ 
limbed, very white, with smSll, clean faces, 
quiet and gentle in habit, prolific inbreeding, 
and take on flesh, when well fed, with ease 
and rapidity. Their flesh, too, is choice and 
delicate, but in full-grown animals, too much 
inclined to fat for stomachs any way deli¬ 
cate. The lambs, however, are superb, 
large, fat and delicious,'and fit for the table 
at an early age. To those who like a large, 
strong sheep, they are the thing for your 
place. 
The Southdown is a smaller animal, with 
a compact, well-knit body, dark brown, al¬ 
most black face and legs, of beautiful pro¬ 
portions, with finer-grained, well-marbled 
flesh, and every way the beau-ideal of the 
mutton sheep. They are not so white as the 
long-wooled, but equally handsome and at¬ 
tractive in their appearance. They will live 
on closer pasture, and thrive, even where 
the others will barely live. They also ma¬ 
ture rather earlier, are quite as prolific, and 
gentle in their habits. Our people, in reality, 
know little or nothing of the excellence of 
Southdown mutton. Its steaks and “ sad¬ 
dles” are equal to the best venison, furnish¬ 
ing, moreover, its own gravies, which the 
venison, in most cases, does not; and for a 
“ chop,” nothing can equal it. The most 
sensitive stomach can digest Southdown 
mutton, and nothing is more nutritious. We 
Americans, in fact, know little about mutton 
as an economical food any way. The poor, 
flabby, stringy stuff mostly sold in our mark¬ 
ets as mutton, in carcasses of thirty to fifty 
pounds weight, and by which we judge the 
general quality of mutton, is not the arti¬ 
cle furnished by the Cotswold or the South- 
down, but little of which we get at all, while 
they who understand what true mutton is, 
and keep it on their grounds, or know where 
to procure it, enjoy its luxury in the highest 
perfection ; and all country dwellers, with a 
little pains, can cultivate their own small 
flocks if they choose. It is not necessary 
here to go into elaborate directions for the 
rearing or care of sheep. Those who keep 
them can obtain all such information in de¬ 
tail by purchasing almost any of the popular 
works on sheep-culture at the bookstores, 
or consulting some agricultural work in 
their own libraries. 
We have treated the sheep in our re¬ 
marks solely as an economical creature; 
but they have a value of another kind to 
many who enjoy the pleasures and recrea¬ 
tions of country life, quite as attractive in 
their pleasant companionship, and as objects 
of ornament to the grounds. In a wide 
lawn or park, where the trees are grown 
beyond their reach, nothing lends a greater 
charm to a picture of innocence and repose 
than a group of sheep quietly reposing under 
a shade, or nibbling their food miscellane¬ 
ously over the grounds. They amuse the 
children, and a pet lamb^next to the “pony,” 
is the summum-bonum of a little boy’s or 
girl’s attachment. No creature is so confi¬ 
ding, so fearless, so companionable, as a pet 
lamb, and nothingohalf so innocent. Almost 
every year* we have, either by accident or 
casualty, one or more of them, and when 
there are no young children to share their 
gambols, they follow our herdsman, Charley, 
and his little black and tan terriers, all over 
the fields, as he looks after his stock or other 
duties on the farm. We have frequent 
occasions to cross a considerable body of 
water adjoining the place, and as the herds¬ 
man often plays the^iarsman in the Summer 
season, not only the dogs, but a lamb or two 
leap into the boat as it leaves the shore, and 
take their ride across the water and back in 
good companionship and great apparent en¬ 
joyment. They lie down together, drink 
their milk from the same dish, and are good 
friends everywhere, until arriving at the 
stage of sheephood in the Autumn, the “ cas 
sets” are turned out with the flock, among 
which they soon find themselves at home, 
but ever retaining their confiding love to¬ 
wards their early protectors. Add the sheep 
to your other farm companions, if you can. 
RO OT CRO PS- 
Are our readers fully sensible of the value 
of root crops? Are they mindful, just now, 
to have the ground well prepared for them, 
the seed well selected and properly sowed ? 
Potatoes will undoubtedly be planted in 
abundance; but there may be a neglect of 
carrots, turnips, beets, parsneps, vegetable 
oysters, &c. Remember how valuable many 
of these roots are as Winter fodder for 
horses and cattle. They may be kept quite 
fresh through the Winter, by burying them 
in heaps out of doors, or by storing them in 
the cellar, in sand. We prefer, however, to 
leave a portion of our parsneps and vege¬ 
table oysters in the open ground till Spring : 
when newly dug from the garden, they have 
a freshness and sweetness which those 
housed in the cellar do not possess. 
Now is the time to sow the seeds of all 
these crops, except turnips, which may pro¬ 
fitably wait a few weeks. Sow thickly, in 
drills, thinning out the plants as they grow, 
leaving them plenty of room to develop them¬ 
selves on every side. No success need be 
expected, unless the ground is made rich, 
and kept free from weeds throughout the 
Summer. No weed should be allowed to get 
more than an inch high ; after that, the labor 
of exterminating them is almost doubled. 
