Vol. XLIY. No. 1864 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 17 
PRICE FIVE CENTS 
$i .00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1885, by the Rural New-Yorker In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
an even dozen ticks would so worry and annoy 
a sheep that under no system of feeding could 
she make a tnaxium gain, and by shearing her 
all these are removed with the fleece or so 
nearly all of them, that an old hen with a 
half score of chickens will pick off the re¬ 
maining ones in two days, or by dressing the 
ewes, after they have been shorn, with a mix¬ 
ture of kerosene and lard, or lard oil, every 
tick is destroyed, and both the mothers and 
lambs will feel no annoyance from this source. 
high feeding they receive to force the lambs 
along and to fatten themselves, causes a 
rapid growth of wool, and a second fleece of 
considerable value is produced by the time 
the ewe is sent to market, thus increasing the 
profits. 
WHEN THEY SHOULD BE SHEARED 
depends considerably upon the circumstances. 
We want as long a staple and as much 
weight as we can get, and the longer they 
are allowed to go, of course the more wool, 
smooth lumber, well planed and about a foot 
high, large enough to hold the sheen and re¬ 
ceive the fleece, and if the barn is light 
enough, this can be taken into each pen in 
succession as the sheep are sheared. In shear¬ 
ing, be as expeditious as possible, and in all 
case3 keep the ewe on her side or stomach, and 
as little as may be on her back. Of course, at 
this time the ewes are very liable to injury, 
but if carefully handled, not one in ten thou¬ 
sand will receive any damage. 
For a few days after shearing, care must be 
taken that no windows or doors be opened, 
so that the cold air will blow upon the sheep, 
but in one week they become accustomed to 
the change and will be no more injured by an 
occasional cold puff than would a flock of 
shorn sheep by a cold morning in June. 
CERTAIN CONDITIONS ARE ESSENTIAL 
and must be provided by everyone who would 
practice winter shearing. The stables must 
be secured against strong currents of cold air 
through crevices in the siding or broken win¬ 
dow panes, or from open doors or windows. 
They should also be made so warm that the 
thermometer will stand at about SO' 4 or So 1 ?. 
An occasional fall to 40° or 30 Q even may not 
do the animal material injury, if not too sud¬ 
den or accompanied by air currents, but it is 
far better and safer to provide against such 
changes, and this can be easily done by the 
use of tarred paper and an extra lining of 
cheap boards. In no barn for sheep or other 
stock should frost ever be permitted. And the 
nearer the temperature is kept uniform at 
50“ to 60°, the better will the stock thrive. 
Animal heat must be maintained at 08“, and 
if the surroundings are greatly below this, a 
large part of the food consumed will be 
diverted from forming flesh or wool to the 
manufacture of heat, and every one who tries 
the experiment will soon be convinced that 
close and warm quarters are much cheaper 
than the extra supply of food. 
But while all currents must be excluded 
and warmth must be maintained, it must not 
be done by excluding fresh, pure air, because 
pure air is as essential as warmth, and the 
moment fresh air is shut out, disease is in¬ 
vited to enter and it will certainly accept the 
invitation. An abundant supply of air is in¬ 
sured by providing large ventilating tubes or 
trunks running from the stable up through 
the barn to and out, at the apex of the roof. 
These should be provided at their lower ends 
with slides or valves, by the opening and clos¬ 
ing of which the proper temperature and 
degree of ventilation can be secured; by thus 
providing a way for the heated foul air to 
escape, plenty of pure fresh air will find its 
way in to fill the space; but to make doubly 
sure traps or slides may be made to opeu from 
the barn above, and thus pure air will be 
drawn from there without the possibility of a 
strong current. 
A CONVENIENT COTTAGE, 
Q „ CoXt .^ show at Figures 455 
(TjyV© and 456 a very neat and 
Cl ^ conveil ' ent cottage of 
'/ six rooms. Its external 
I appearance is certain- 
c ly very pleasing, and we 
f think its interior ar- 
* rangement will be 
found most satisfactory 
for a small family. This 
style of cottage is be¬ 
coming quite popular on 
account of its cheapness 
6 V and the cosy and con- 
Qj venient arrangement of 
its rooms. All the rooms are of good size 
and shape, and there is a large closet 
in each. The kitchen, which is remarkably 
roomy, has chimney space provided for a 
range. It is stated that something of a sav¬ 
ing in the cost of the house would lie 
effected by making simply a flue, and usiug 
either an ordinary stove or a portable range. 
The rooms on the flrst floor are finished 
with stained pice, and those on the second 
floor with pine shellacked. Tb6 house is cov¬ 
ered with clapboards to the second story, and 
theu shingled, with a neat belt course separat¬ 
ing the clapboards and shingles. The shingles 
on the roof are painted, while those on the 
sides are planed, left their natural color and 
oiled. The cost of this house is #1,800. Mr. 
Augustus Howe, Jr., of 7 Warren Street, New 
York, is the architect. 
AUU>tOV»E JK^ARCHT 
A CONVENIENT COTTAGE, 
And then, again, every sheep that has worn a 
fleece through the Summer has got more or 
less sticks, straws, and chaff into the wool,and 
these will often work down to the skin and 
cause irritation and sores, and by removing 
the fleece all these are taken away. 
And again, as we have before stated, it is 
almost certain that the lambs will acquire the 
habit of pulling and eating the wool both to 
their detriment and to such a loss of wool that 
the mother will not have an ounce more fleece 
on the first day of June than she had when the 
lamb was dropped. And again, the wool is 
put upon the ewe for the sole purpose of pro- 
and the longer it will be up to the time when 
the lambs get to dropping pretty lively. Then 
while we are using the males to ascertain 
which ewes to take oat, we do not wish to have 
them shown, and until we have them well 
settled to their winter feed and accustomed to 
the quarters, we prefer not to shear. To do 
all this, one year with another, takes till about 
the last of December or the first of January: 
but it should iu all cases be done before the 
lambs are old enough to pull the wool, and if 
done before they are dropped there is in¬ 
finitely less trouble in their finding the teat 
and helping themselves “to grub.” 
$utal Western |T. 4!. Jam £lote.$ 
RAISING WINTER LAMBS. 
SHEARING THE KNVES, 
soon after they are put into the stables 
and before the advent of the lambs or, when 
at most only a few lauibs have come is the 
operation, at which we hinted in our last 
notes, as an antidote for the evils of sheep 
ticks, and of the lambs eating their mother's 
wool. Don’t be incredulous at this proposi¬ 
tion, a ad say, as many auotlierhas said to the 
writer personally, “Why, it can’t be done 
without the sheep taking cold and becoming 
diseased, and surely if it could it must be 
cruel to strip tbe warm coat off the sheep at 
this season.” By so doing you would merely 
show ignorance of what may be done uuder 
certain conditions,and acknowledge that if you 
had at any time attempted to raise winter 
lambs you would have been content to follow 
in the old worn out ruts of the forefathers, 
without even an experiment, to ascertain if 
perchance there might he a better way. Win¬ 
ter shearing is not only possible, but it is 
practicable and extremely conducive, not only 
to the comfort of the sheep, out to the swel¬ 
ling of profit to the feeder, as we have demon¬ 
strated time and again by our practice 
for the past five or more years. It not only 
is not unhealthy, but the sheep are in every 
way better and gain faster. We annually 
shear every ewe that we keep to raise a lamb, 
and we have yet to see the first oue that has 
had a cold, or has been ill, from any cause at¬ 
tributable to the loss of her fleece, and what 
we can do at a profit, everybody else follow¬ 
ing iu our wake, can do as well. 
WHY WE SHEAR THE EWES, 
is apparant upon investigation. Iu the first 
place every sheep has more or less ticks, and 
even if these would remain on the mother, 
pantry 
6 a$* 
KlTCMCN 
19 x I V 
SCO ROOM 
l£V* itV 
CuOfiCT 
CL06CT 
TWO DESIGNS FOR SHEER-RACKS. 
BALU 
SITTING ROOM 
13'* 16' 
A glance at the patented sheep-rack de¬ 
vices reveals one which would seem to possess 
some good features. The patent having run 
out, the device, of course, is now public pro¬ 
perty. The peculiar feature of this sheep- 
rack is tbe employment of a loose rack in 
such a manner that it may serve either to close 
the sheep-rack, so as to preveut the sheep 
from putting their heads into the rack, or, as 
protection against the waste of hay, and the 
falling of hay-seed and dirt into the wool of 
the sheep. 
jb We give a front elevation in Fig. 459, (p. 692), 
and Figa 400 and 461 are sectional views show¬ 
ing the adjustable rack liuug in both its 
bearings. The end-pieces of the rack slope 
towards the rear. The front vertical boards 
are far enough apart to permit the sheep to 
PORCH 
PLAN OF CONVENIENT COTTAGE. Fig. 456 
tection against the cold and storms of Winter, 
and when we change the conditions under 
which she is to be kept, we chauge the neces¬ 
sities ; and when she Is placed in a warm stable, 
the fleece becomes not only unnecessary, but 
absolutely injurious, by keeping the ewe too 
warm and causing undue perspiration, which 
is always exhausting. And, lastly, when the 
fleece is removed as soon as the sheep get well 
accustomed to their winter quarters, the very’ 
CAREFUL HANDLING 
in shearing should be imperatively insisted 
upon. The ewes are theu heavy with lamb 
or have just lambed, and in either case they 
should be handled so gently as to take no 
harm. The eye of the owner at this time 
should be very active, and if a shearer uses 
the least violence, “fire him out” of the barn 
so far that he will never again hear the sheep 
bleat. It is best to have a platform made of 
