1870 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
175 
carcass, but with a pure blooded Cotswold. Wool 
buyers ask for combing wool, and dressers for 
a large carcass.” I am sorry to see good llocks of 
Merino sheep sacrificed. I believe those who 
weed out all the poor ones and keep none but 
the best—and keep them well—will, in the end, 
have no cause to regret it. Cotswold wool, 
whether from grades or thorough-breds, brings 
a higher price than Merino. I do not think it 
will be any lower as long as the present tariff 
continues, but I think Merino wool will be 
higher. And it would seem that we might re¬ 
tain our llocks of Merinos for future use, and in 
the meantime raise one or two crops of combing 
wool by using Cotswold, Lincoln, or Leicester 
rams with Merino ewes. The long-wooled rams 
must be thorougli-bred. It is folly to hope for 
success with any other. And the less thorough¬ 
bred the Merino ewes are the more will the 
lambs take after the ram. I would select large¬ 
framed, common, quarter or half-blood Merino 
ewes, feed them well all summer and autumn, 
and if it is intended to raise early lambs for the 
butcher, turn in a long-wooled or Southdown 
ram the last of September, or first of October. 
If you have good quarters there is no trouble 
about raising lambs during the coldest weather 
in winter. Such lambs ought to bring 18c. to 
25c. a pound, live weight, in April or May. A 
Merino ewe, like an Alderney cow, will give 
very rich milk, and a good deal of it, for such 
a small animal, if well fed for three or four 
mouths before lambing, and three or four 
months afterwards. When two weeks old the 
lambs will begin to eat a little bran or fine mid¬ 
dlings, and if furnished abundance of nutritive 
food, will grow with astonishing rapidity. 
If it is not intended to sell the lambs early, 
they need not come before April. The ewes 
should be well fed during the winter. The 
grade lambs will be larger and require more 
food than if they were Merinos. This must be 
provided for by furnishing abundance of nutri¬ 
tious food for tffe ewes. I think there is noth¬ 
ing better than, say, one pound of bran and half 
a pound of beans, oats, or oil-cake per day; and 
this feed should be continued after the ewes are 
turned out to grass. We weighed one of our 
thorough-bred Cotswold lambs the day it was 
born and it weighed 12 1 1 a lbs. That day two 
weeks, it weighed 25 pounds. Now, it should 
be understood that when we use a thorough¬ 
bred Cotswold ram on common Merino ewes, 
we get lambs that have nearly all the qualities 
and characteristics of the Cotswold. And one 
of these is to grow rapidly. But no animal can 
grow unless it has food to grow with. Those 
who talk about improved breeds of animals re¬ 
quiring very little food, talk nonsense. It is 
true only in this sense: The} 1 -have little offal, 
and are gentle and quiet, and when they have 
attained their growth they require less food than 
a restless animal. But when they are young 
and growing they require abundance of food. 
I have some Merino ewes that I put to a thor¬ 
ough-bred Cotswold. I expect lambs that at 
six months old, will weigh 90 lbs. Now, if I 
had used a Merino I should have had lambs 
that, with ordinary treatment, would require 
three years to attain this weight. The grade 
Cotswolds would grow at the rate of one-half 
a pound per day; the Merinos, assuming that 
we had 10 lbs. of wool from the two extra 
fleeces, would grow only at the rate of one and 
a half ounces per day. The Merinos eat but 
little more than enough food to sustain the vital 
functions, say, 2 lbs. of hay per day or its equiv¬ 
alent ; the Cotswold grades eat, say, double the 
amount of food, or 4 lbs. per day, and being of 
a quiet disposition they probably require no 
more food to sustain the vital functions than the 
Merinos, and consequently the extra food is 
converted into growth. If 80 per cent of the 
food which a Merino eats is used to keep up the 
animal heat and support the vital functions, we 
have 20 lbs. of food out of the 100 lbs. that is 
available for the growth of the sheep. The 
Cotswold grades eat double the amount, say 200 
lbs. instead of 100 lbs. Of this 200 lbs., 80 lbs. 
are required, as before, to sustain the vital 
functions. The result should be as follows: 
Merinos. Cotswolds. 
Total food consumed.100 tbs. 200 tbs. 
Pood required to sustain the vital 
functions. 80 lbs. 80 lbs. 
Pood available for growth of animal. 20 lbs. 120 lbs. 
So that, with double the food, the Cotswold 
grades would be capable of growing six times 
as rapidly as the Merinos. 
But give the Cotswold grades no more food 
than the Merinos and I do not see how they 
can grow any faster, unless we are to assume 
that from being of a more quiet disposition they 
require much less food to sustain the vital func¬ 
tions. If they required 10 per cent less food 
for this purpose than the Merinos, they would 
on the same food, grow half as fast again. Thus: 
Merinos. Cotswolds. 
Total food consumed.. 100 lbs. 100 lbs. 
Food required to sustain the vital 
functions. 80 lbs. 70 lbs. 
Food available for growth. 20 lbs. 30 lbs. 
But whether this is the case or not, the ad¬ 
vantage of a liberal allowance of food is appar¬ 
ent. In raising Cotswold lambs from Merino 
ewes, therefore, the chief object should be to 
induce the ewes to give rich milk, and also to 
furnish the lambs all the nutritious food they 
will eat while suckling. 
In the experiments at the Michigan Agricul¬ 
tural College, eight lambs from grade Merino 
ewes, and a thorough-bred Cotswold ram, 
weighed, when from o'|' 2 to6*| 2 months old, 78‘| a , 
82'| 2 , 83 j | 2 , 83 ! | 2 , 86, 87, 89‘| 2 , and 97lbs. each. 
Six of these sheep sheared, June 6th, when 
about 13 months old, 12, 14'|„ 13 J | 4 ,12 3 | 4 , 12 3 | 4 , 
and 10‘| 2 lbs. of wool each. The sheep were 
thoroughly tagged, but the fleeces were un¬ 
washed. Dr. Miles says: “ The wool was of 
good quality, free from gum or dirt, and from 
the length of fibre, well adapted to the manu¬ 
facture of delaines, or for combing purposes.” 
This wmol, together with the wool from the 
Merino and grade Merino sheep, was sent to 
Boston, and the grade Cotswold wool brought 
44 cents per lb., and the Merino 33 cents per lb., 
both unwashed. 
There is, therefore, no reason to doubt our 
ability to raise combing wool for a year or two, 
and at the same time retain our present fine 
wool sheep. We shall get fine wool from the 
ewes and combing wool and good mutton from 
the lambs. 
A young man who thought of studying law 
asked Daniel Webster if the profession was not 
overcrowded. “ Yes,” he replied, “but there 
is plenty of room up higher.” And it is just so 
in regard to farming. In the production of poor 
butter the business is overcrowded, “but there is 
plenty of room up higher.” Poor, common cows 
are plenty, but where can you buy a really good 
one? And so of sheep, and cattle. The mar¬ 
kets are overrun with inferior animals that sell 
for less than half price, and are dear at that. 
And we see the same thing in the grain markets. 
Those who say there is “ no money in farm¬ 
ing,” are more than half right. A poor farmer 
and a pettyfogging lawyer find the business over¬ 
crowded, “but there is plenty of room up higher.’’ 
Sweet Potato Culture. 
BY MB. B. WILLIAMS, WILLIAMS’ FORD, N. J. 
[Mr. Williams, who grows sweet potatoes 
largely, favors us with a very full account of his 
method of cultivation, from starting the sets to 
harvesting and storing the crop. It is now too 
late for his directions for starting the plants to 
be of any use. We give some timely extracts 
from the article, reserving his method of harvest¬ 
ing and keeping the crops until later.— Eds.] 
With regard to plants, Mr. W. says : “ I find 
sprouts 2 inches long, the best, i. e., 2 inches of 
white [below the soil of the bed], and 3 inches 
of green, making 5 inches in all. I plant 4 
inches deep, and if cut off even with the ground 
by frost or cut-worms, they will still come. 
“I grow sweet potatoes upon my lightest soil, 
which is moderately rich naturally, or made so 
with manure; on such soil I have two plans of 
field culture, both of which I will give: On 
soil that is a rich, sandy loam : In the month 
of April, I sprinkle broadcast over the ground 
sal-ammoniac and lime, two of the latter to one 
of the former, in powder, as you would plaster, 
but in less quantity. Then plow down, taking 
care not to sprinkle too far ahead of the plow. 
[In giving Mr. W’s method, we must dissent 
from his sal-ammoniac and lime together, as an 
expense which cannot be warranted by the re¬ 
sults. The lime decomposes the sal-ammoniac, 
and the ammonia is nearly or quite wasted.— 
Eds.] After having turned it under, I cover the 
whole ground with a light coat of plaster, and 
let it remain until the time I want to plant, 
which is about the 10th or 15th of May, when I 
prepare the ground bypassing a cultivator over 
it; then take a plow and mark the ground three 
feet both ways, straight and true, which makes 
the hills three feet square—thus giving 4,840 
hills to the acre. I have had them to yield a 
bushel from 20 hills, or 242 bushels of potatoes 
to the acre; which is not an uncommon yield, 
when they do well. 
“I prepare a compost of horse, sheep, and short 
barn-yard manure, as soon in the spring as I 
can, for sweet potatoes require a rotted manure. 
This mixture after being thoroughly incorpo¬ 
rated, is mixed with one-fourth of its bulk of 
green-sand marl. About a half shovelful of this 
compost is put where the rows cross each other, 
and a hill is made with the hoe a foot high, and 
run to a point. Put one plant in a hill. When 
the weeds begin to grow, which is about the 
middle of June, I run the cultivator through 
both ways. It cleans between the rows and the 
bottom of the hill thoroughly; I then follow 
with an iron tooth rake, having teeth about three 
inches long, to loosen the top of the hill around 
the plant; then with the hoes, scrape off 
the weeds on the remainder of the hill. In 
about three days I run the plow through both 
ways, follow after with the hoes, and hoe the 
hill up smooth. The plants by this time have 
started six or eight inches; in about two weeks, 
or the first week of July, the vines begin to cov¬ 
er the hill; I then go along with the hoe and 
lifting the vines with the hand, clean off all the 
weeds that may show themselves, and leave the 
hill and vines clean and smooth. In about two 
weeks, or August 1st, I carefully turn the 
vines, and plow and hoe, then replace the vines. 
About the middle of August, I go through 
agaiu and pull the vines loose, to prevent their 
taking root. If this is well done, and all the 
weeds that show themselves are pulled out, 
they will want nothing more until digging time. 
“ Another plan of management is as follows; 
