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PRIZE ESSAY.— Class VII. 
SHEEP. 
BY “AN OLD SHEPHERD.” 
Two branches of a profitable industry are 
now occupying a large space in the field of 
agriculture. To one of these the manufac¬ 
turer of woolens is indebted for his raw mate¬ 
rial: to the other the public is looking for a 
“royal leg of mutton.” Collectively, then, 
the sheep industry is in the fore-front. The 
South Down sheep are held in high estimation 
by men who are careful to note the right side 
of the balance sheet. The wool supplies au 
important demand in the general market. 
The sheep are hardy, and have met the im¬ 
porters’ expectations even in the colder por¬ 
tions of our country. They come to maturity 
very early, are small consumers of fool, and 
have an aptitude to fatten. The mutton is 
unsurpassed in excellence. They carry to the 
shambles a very fine carcass, broad und well 
rounded, and are covered with a layer of 
appetizing fat. As a pure breed, they are 
valuable for crossing with longer-wooled 
sheep. From my experience I would recom¬ 
mend a cross with one-fourth Merino. The 
ewes of this cross are better to breed from 
than any other I have known. The wool is 
very fine and strong, and has a desirable 
gloss. They are not prone to lose their Iambs, 
as the ewes are strong and vigorous. They 
are not like some other breeds of which it is 
said: 
'• The lambs piny always, they know no better. 
They are only one times one;" 
but these present the shepherd with “two 
ones two.” High, rolling groundcovered with 
such grasses as arc usually found on eleva¬ 
tions, Is most favorable for them. The area 
of their range is not necessarily large in pro¬ 
portion to their numbers; but it should be of 
sufficient extent to meet their wants. 
The winter management is more important. 
Arrangements should be made for their pro¬ 
tection. A shod or Lara should be built (it 
need not be a costly one), and made conve¬ 
nient for feeding purposes. A plan of a de¬ 
sirable shed is shown at Fig. 175. Let the 
Sheep Shed. Fig. 175. 
structure be 16 feet in width, and let its length 
be in proportion to the number of the flock, 
present or prospective. The hight to the 
eaves may be five feet (if a hay loft is re¬ 
quired, it may be 12 feet), and it should be 
boarded upon the sides. The gables ends may 
be closed against storms. Let the ends at 
B. B. be open for the ingress and agress of the 
sheep, and for circulation of air. A wind¬ 
break should be made at each end, as shown 
at the two lines C. C. In the center there 
should be a rack 2% feet wide, running the 
length of the barn. To make it, place two 
six-inch boards lengthwise on each side at the 
bottom; one foot above each of these there 
should be another board, the space between 
them affording room for the sheep to get at 
the hay. Another board or two should be 
placed above these to prevent the sheep from 
getting into the rack. Place a trough D. D. 
for feeding grains on each side above the 
opening. A. A. A. A. represent two alley 
ways. Stock sheep require but little grain 
when supplied with good hay. But those 
designed for au early market should be fed 
with a daily ration of grain. Farmers who 
have a considerable number to fatten, will do 
well to raise a special crop for that purpose; 
beans and oats, grown together, will meet this 
want. With oats and peas ground together and 
fed alternately with corn, excellent results 
may be obtained. A field in which no stock 
has been fed for a month or two before frost, 
will supply a very desirable run for sheep in 
open winter weather. 
Should there be any lambs to be/‘reared by 
hand,” care should be taken in feeding at first- 
Rich milk should be diluted with u little warm 
water. Give to the ewes and lambs clean and 
well-ventilated quarters. Let them have a 
run out in the sun. The water snpply is of 
great importance, as water is necessary to the 
digestion of all solid foods, and ft should be 
supplied regularly to the flock. Salt should be 
given at frequent intervals. Sheep will relish 
bean vines as a change. In stormy wwither, 
let the stock sheep have rations of peas, beans 
and oats alternately. Ensilage is just what 
the sheep are after when digging under the 
snow for green forage. 
It requires some devotion to the sheep in¬ 
dustry on prairie farms to provide for their 
wants. A pasture with a stream of water 
and high rolling ground, is the best range, 
and it should be divided so as to furnish new 
and succulent pasturage. Some trees afford¬ 
ing shade are needed to protect the sheep 
from the hot rays of the summer sun. In the 
colder portions of our country, the lambs 
should not make their appearance before the 
first of May, and should be weaned about the 
middle of September. They should have 
fresh pasturage,so that they may go into Win¬ 
ter in good condition. The poor animals of 
the flock, if there he any, should not be used 
as breeders, but be Acted for market in a sepa¬ 
rate pasture, with rations of grain. The sheep 
will quickly learn to seek shelter from cold 
storms, if called in a few times and fed a little 
grain. 
Give to sheep prompt attention, Go among 
them daily. They nro very fond of a kind 
shepherd, “for they know his voice.” Look 
well to the health of the sheep. Remove au^ 
diseased ones from the Hock. Keep a tho¬ 
roughbred shepherd dog; he will do good 
picket duty, 
“Carry the lambs in your bosom;” they are 
the future of the flock. As you hurry up the 
hay at the approach of rain, so gather in the 
sheep from the cold storms. The long wool 
and heavy fleeces should not be exposed to cold 
rain ami sleet; the sheep will suffer. 
From wool, mutton and the flock come the 
profits; look well to each Interest. 
Give to the ewes having lambs, cut turnipj 
daily, an well as oats. They will increase the 
flow of milk. 
Pulverize tobacco very fine and sift it into 
the wool; it will kill the ticks. Good snuff 
will do it also. 
Osage, Iowa. 
THE BEST EDUCATION FOR FARM 
BOYS. 
Mr. C. E. Thorne, in his Rural New- 
Yorker Prize Essay, on the education of 
farm children, postulates as the third necessity 
for the “successful farmer of to-day,” “a 
general knowledge of the relationship between 
agriculture and the various branches of natu¬ 
ral scienco." 
The equivalent of this statement in some 
form, is the text from which many sermons 
have been preached at that patient congrega¬ 
tion—the farmers. It Is a gospel that falls, in 
the main, upon unbelieving ears. Instances 
of even more than a general knowledge of the 
natural sciences are common enough among 
farmers, so that if such knowledge was coin¬ 
cident with unusual success, we of the same 
household, so to speak, could not help seeing 
it. It has been my observation, and 1 suppose 
it to be a common one, that they are not coin¬ 
cident. When a man of greater or less edu¬ 
cation comes to face the problem of making 
money by the tillage of land, he finds that he 
has undertaken a business wherein his fust re¬ 
quisite is to learn its methods and practices. 
These methods must, for the most part, be 
learned as Tourgee’s Nimbus learned tobacco¬ 
growing, “by sposure,” and are the “ how" 
of his calling. The relationship between the 
how and the “various branches of natural 
science” which constitute its “why,” ordinarily 
contributes nothing to such success as the 
| farmer achieves. The measure of success, 
moreover, is rightly taken to be the standard 
by which all the world compares legitimate 
businesses, from the smallest peanut stand to 
the largest publishing concern. Now, if the 
most successful farmer in any community be 
taken as an example, it will rarely be found 
that his superiority lias in the “science” of his 
operations; but rather that he has adapted 
his farming to the conditions of his situation, 
restricting it to the specialties which those 
conditions clearly point to; that he makes 
better sales, has better management, is a bet¬ 
ter commander of help than his neighbors, 
outdoing them in qualities which would be 
equally valuable in running a factory, and 
which any hard study might have helped to 
develop. 
Leaving amateurs and experimenters out of 
the consideration, I, for one, protest that, for 
the average farmer, hedged about as he is by 
the limitations of his narrow life, there is no 
application of the natural sciences to his busi¬ 
ness. Good sense and good methods are the 
sign by which he will conquer. Every indus¬ 
trial calling has its points of contact with 
scientific inquiry; the iron-worker and the 
cook are as nearly touched by chemistry as 
the farmer; geology has its lessons for the 
quarryman and mason as well as for him, and 
while a knowledge of these, aud kindred sub¬ 
jects, would, on general principles, be desira¬ 
ble for all good citizens, it is not essential to 
. success in the shop, or the field. Many farm¬ 
ers, ignorant of books and in all things too 
superstitious, who understand by “science” a 
sort of patent-right, short-cut, aud many book¬ 
ish men whoso knowledge of farming stops 
with its literature, over-estimate the impor¬ 
tance of scientific studies as affecting success 
in farming. The great majority of farmers 
are reading and thinking men. it’ they are not 
scholars, and have a decided opinion about 
how much and how little value belongs to the 
scientific method of inquiry in their business. 
The oracle they consult is the balance-sheet, 
not the test-tube or microscope. They had 
marked, soil-analysis, the bucolic “Blue Grass 
cure,” a humbug, before Joseph Harris said it 
was uncertain and unprofitable. Prof. Real, 
and other eminent Scientists, spoke for them, 
when they poiuted to improved seed as the 
most,promising direction in which to advance; 
and J submit, that picking out the model pota¬ 
toes and perfect ears of corn in the Pall, and 
keeping them in vigorous vitality against the 
Spring's planting, is uo application of science; 
it is merely gumption. Most, people who have 
given attention to the subject will agree, I 
think, that the seedsmen of this country have 
done more for its agricultural advancement 
than have its agricultural colleges. 
All the ’ologies in the world are not so im¬ 
portant to a man who is planting a commer¬ 
cial orchard of winter apples as to know 
enough to limit himself to three varieties. No 
analysis determines the real feeding-value, as 
a whole or partial ration, of any grain or fod¬ 
der, as Col. Curtis aud Henry Stewart have 
both shown in these columns. While the doc¬ 
tors may tabulate the carbo-hydrates aud al¬ 
buminoids, the successful feeder will take 
Prof. Sanborn's advice and “ask the honest 
steer” what he thrives on? Notice how, back 
ed by his (the steer’s) certificate of approval, 
ensilage is advancing to an important place— 
as It now appears—in our farm economy, 
much as the turnip grew to be “the sheet an¬ 
chor of British agriculture,” though both were 
denounced by a swarm of doctrinaires crying, 
“Too wet, too wet l” 
If any man among ua is able to say with 
authority whether hill or drill, ridge or level 
culture is best for corn and potatoes, he has 
uot been heard from; when he does speak, it 
will be his figures, not his reasons, that will 
command attention. As the Rural recently 
remarked, In substance, the disputed points in 
farming will bo settled, when they are settled, 
by careful and many-times-repeated trials, 
wherein, I will suggest, the principal science 
to be applied will be the science of numbers. 
What the son of a farmer should be taught 
in school is a question that, with much defer¬ 
ence, I will venture one suggestion upon, viz., 
that any course of study good for a plow- 
maker, is equally good for a plow-holder. 
Both are business men, and in the activities of 
daily life will, as a rule, gradually forget all 
their school acquirements which they do not 
in some way use. For my part, I have not 
analyzed a flower since I “passed” in botany, 
or opened the old algebra since X laid it on the 
shelf. 1 make no application, whatever, of 
either botany or algebra in my farming; and 
yet 1 am helpod in it by both of them, if their 
“grind” in;tho least served to sharpen my facul¬ 
ties. This it undoubtedly did; hut one exam¬ 
ple in algebra with which I wrestled long, aud 
finally solvod, I believe to have been of more 
value to me, in that respect, than an entire 
term of botany. In that struggle and victory 
I could feel, as it seemed to me in our Western 
phrase, that I grew “broader between the 
eyes”’ And, I take it, the paramount object 
of study, beyond the elementary branches, for 
either town or country youth, is to strengthen 
the mental grasp, and “broaden between the 
eyes.” EDWIN TAYLOR. 
Wyandotte Co., Kan. 
L’ileiun}. 
A VISIT TO NEW YORK. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER, 
Although New York and Philadelphia are 
as cities, nearly of an age, and but two hours 
distant from each other by rail, the difference 
between the two is great, Philadelphia is 
enormous in extent; spreading out over miles 
and miles of “green meadows,” while New 
York is long and narrow, condensed, com¬ 
pressed, more than crowded, a bee hive, 
whose workers, in large part, live and sleep 
elsewhere; Philadelphia is “ slower,” and it is 
probably true that the Quaker City is the 
“nicest” city to live in—maybe in the United 
States. Mr. Matthew Arnold thought so, and a 
great mauy other people think so. It is not very 
clean, but it is “ roomy," and it has no great 
blocks of wretched tenement houses ns in New 
York. But for all that Hike New York. It 
was my home, and wheuover I return to it 
for n visit, I feel that I breathe my native air 
again. But I am appalled anew each time at its 
swarming multitudes, its stupendous display 
of wealth und extravagance. 
Upon the occasion of toy last visit, we 
reached the city between five and six o’clock, 
the closing business hour of the day. The 
ferries leaving New York were loaded with 
human beings packed as closely as they could 
stand. On a great Gorman steamship making 
its pier, a band was playing, and on the deck 
stood hundreds of emigrants, waiting to step 
foot on these shores where “ fortune” awaits 
them, in their own opinion. Everywhere 
people—eager, tired, pushing, in a hurry. We 
land, and walk quickly up to the down town 
terminus of the Third Avenue elevatixl rail¬ 
road. All the people in New York seem to be 
making their way in the same direction. We 
are swept up the stairs in the crowd, and 
into the cars that are filled and steam out 
every ono or two minutes, and away we 
speed through the air, fairly on the top of 
houses. How audacious and tremendous it all 
seems! like “flying into the face of Provi¬ 
dence.” But to look at the endless stream of 
people, ono wonders how they would ever get 
home without the " elevated." Wo watch for 
our station and harry to alight, but are not 
quick enough to get out, and are whizzed on 
to the next station. “ This is because we are 
slow coaches from Philadelphia,” I remark to 
Anaximander. 
“It is because thero is neither system nor 
method in getting in or out of these cars,” is 
the reply. Anaximander enjoys no reflection 
upon his native city. VV T e experience a breath 
of relief in finding ourselves once more out of 
the “tide of humanity” and where there is 
quiet enough to hear the laddie’s complaint, 
Ob, I don’t like cities I They are so weari¬ 
some! The fields and the woods, whore I can 
do as I please, are a great deal better.” 
There are a uumber of famous houses in New 
York, but some of the most beautiful and ex¬ 
quisite ones the public lias uot heard of. 
Everybody has read of the costly Vanderbilt 
houses, and particularly of that of William H. 
\ underbill, who Is, so far as income goes, 
probably the richest mau in the world. At all 
events, his $12,000,000 a year is a very consid¬ 
erable revenue and quite enough to alleviate 
ail the torturing poverty in his grea t city. He 
has a picture gallery, or galleries, of over 200 
paintings, all by leading foreigu artists, and 
for the portrait of himself, painted by Meis- 
sonier, ho is said to have paid $50,000. I 
wished to see this wonderful house and its 
great wealth of pictures, so 1 sent a note to 
Mr. Vanderbilt asking permission so to do, 
which he kindly granted. The house is exter- 
nufiy of brown stone and stands on a corner of 
Fifth Avenue, not far from the Roman Cath¬ 
olic Cathedral. Wo rang at the entrance of 
the gallery, and u man servant in plain dress 
admitted us, brought me a nicely-bound, gilt- 
edged book, a catalogue of the pictures, and 
then left us to roam about as wo pleased. 
There were the galleries of paintings, the con¬ 
servatory, moist with growing things, and in 
the midst a vase of cut roses—great Paul Ney- 
ron roses, such as the florists had charged me 
a dollar each—the famous hall leuding to the 
grand salon, finished in African marble and 
reaching up to the roof; the superb fire-place 
in it, the tall brass andirons wrought in curi¬ 
ous forms—probubly confiscated from some 
old Italian palace—and logs of real wood rest¬ 
ing upon them ready to be kindled—the won¬ 
derful salon, that dazzling drawing-room, a 
r.hef d'mvore of modem art, -the “state” 
dining-room with its frescoes and carvings, its 
costly sideboards and cupbourds filled with 
choicest wares—the adjacent boudoirs—in¬ 
deed, it was something to decide what to look 
at first. But we began with the paintings, 
and the first one was the Meissonier portrait, 
a canvas 10 by 15 inches in size. For this little 
Frenchman now old and white-haired, paints 
with the most minute touch, and when he 
paints a portrait he never flatters his sitter. 
He made Mr. Vanderbilt to look like “a wine- 
bibber and a sinner,” however true the like¬ 
ness may be. 
I once passed several weeks at Poissy, in 
France, the country home of Meissonier, and 
I remember seeing him ride on horseback after 
his day’s work was done—and quite a dashing 
and military air he had. His house was very 
picturesque—a higglety-pigglety mansion, 
partly surrounded with a wail, and a beauti¬ 
ful garden, as is the fashion in Franco. The 
Poissy people did not love him—they said he 
was very “capricious.” But he has the art of 
selling his little paintings for very large sums 
