Vol. LV. No. 2435. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 26, 1896. 
sag| 
$1.00 PER YEAR. 
THE TYPICAL “HOTHOUSE LAMB." 
WHAT IS TO BE ITS BREEDING ? 
What Shall Its Feeding Be? 
“ Mother, how can I best manage my husband to 
keep him always good natured, and always in love 
with me ? ” 
Thus asks the young bridp, of the mother and wife 
of long experience. The answer is terse and emphatic : 
“ Feed the brute.” That woman knew. So, when 
the somewhat oldish bride, Mrs. Producer, comes to 
me for advice as to how to treat her somewhat fickle 
and perverse husband, the Mr. Market, I answer: 
“ Feed the brute.” Give him what he wants and all 
he wants of it, but don’t load his plate with things 
for which he has no relish, or with which he has been 
already surfeited ; that is, if you care to have his 
smiles, and keep him so good natured and happy 
that he will now and then allow you to slip your 
slender hand into his pocket-book. 
To-day, the Market says continu¬ 
ally, “Too many common sheep on 
sale, prices very low for all such 
grades, and a good many carried 
over unsold. Good lambs in strong 
demand, and not enough to go 
around. A bunch of fancy Ohio 
lambs topped the market at a price 
more than double that quoted for 
the common sheep.” 
For several years, the demand for 
choice winter lambs, misnamed hot¬ 
house lambs, has been a growing 
one, and although the number of 
men embarking in the production 
of these lambs has been steadily on 
the increase, yet it is certain that 
the prices for choice, fat lambs 
early in the season, have kept up, 
and neither free wool, overproduc¬ 
tion nor the gold standard has 
affected them. Fat winter lambs 
are wanted on the tables of the 
wealthy of the cities. There is no 
other such delicious or healthful 
meat. The wealthy will have them, 
and they will not mind the price, 
so the quality suits. 
There is small danger of the busi¬ 
ness being overdone. First, it is 
not often that the man can be found 
who will succeed if he tries it. I 
am by no means writing this to in¬ 
duce men who are all untried in the 
sheep business, to embark in the 
rearing of winter lambs. It takes 
a good shepherd to care for the 
ewes during pregnancy, to bring 
them safely to the large feeding of grain necessary 
to the great production of milk for the lamb fatten¬ 
ing, and to look after the little baby lambs, avert, not 
cure, their little ills and see that they never suffer, 
either the discomforts of hunger or the death pangs 
of over-feeding. Next, it is a habit that must be 
acquired like other habits. The ewe must get into 
the habit of dropping her lambs early. The man 
must get into the habit of providing suitable food, of 
attending to the little charges with the regularity and 
care that he would expend in a human nursery. 
Fig. 199 shows, perhaps, an ideal type of fat lamb, 
ripe for the butcher, perhaps a trifle too old to bring 
the top price. I will briefly give her history. Her 
mother was born among the hills of Dorsetshire, of a 
race that, for centuries, have been accustomed to 
dropping their lambs at the earliest season. When 
she was a yearling, she was bred, and her first lamb, 
a single, was dropped in the fall of 1894. She suckled 
him through the winter, and was well but carefully 
fed to develop her milking qualities. This first ram 
proved a show animal, so was not butchered, although 
of perfection in quality. 
When the next lambing time came, the ewe dropped 
twins, one of which was accidentally killed. She was 
strong and well nourished, so gave plenty of milk. 
As soon as the lamb was taking all of her milk, she 
was given more and richer food until soon she was 
eating all that she wanted of this mixture : Corn meal, 
100 pounds ; wheat bran, 100 pounds; oil meal, 25 
pounds, with all the clover hay that she wanted. The 
ewes and lambs were not confined at all after the 
lambs were strong enough to stand the cold, but ran 
in and out of an open shed as they pleased. It is 
probable that quicker fattening might have been 
secured had the ewes and lambs been kept in, however, 
at the expense of ultimate strength and vigor which 
it was my wish to have as great as possible, as many 
A FIRST-CLASS “HOTHOUSE LAMB.” Fig. 199. 
of the lambs were of good blood and designed for the 
flock. 
I have thought this lamb near the ideal of perfec¬ 
tion for the winter lamb market. It is probable that 
she might have been better had the Dorset mother 
been crossed with a vigorous South Down ram. That 
is the experiment that I shall try some day when I 
have more Dorsets. 
Is the Dorset ewe the best for raising winter lambs ? 
That question is rarely asked now. I think that sheep 
men are agreed that she is the best. Why should she 
not be? Is there nothing in heredity, in breeding for 
a special purpose through long periods of time ? To 
deny it, is to deny the principle of breeding and selec¬ 
tion that has made every breed of English sheep what 
it is. And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. 
The Dorset lambs are the plums in the winter-lamb 
pudding all the time. 
Somewhat of a different question is, “Is the Dorset 
the best sire for winter lambs ? ” I would not blame 
one who disputed this, from a theoretical standpoint. 
To-day, there are plenty of data to show that the Dor¬ 
set is the best sire. See the bulletins of the New 
York Experiment Station. See the Stockman lamb 
test last year, where Shropshires, Rambouillets and 
Dorsets were compared, the Dorsets winning at a 
walk. Yesterday, at our Ohio State Fair, I had a talk 
with that veteran and world-known sheepman, S. H. 
Todd. Knowing that he had been trying the Dorsets, 
I asked him as to the results. He is not a breeder of 
Dorsets, and talked to me from a pen of beautiful 
Shropshire lambs, ideally perfect; lambs that he de¬ 
clares will take all the prizes at Madison Square 
Garden next winter, so he can hardly be accused of 
partiality to the Dorsets. 
“ Yes, Mr. Wing, I will have to admit that the Dor¬ 
set rams crossed on my ewes, got me better lambs 
than my Shropshire rams. Not that the Dorset lambs 
were larger or heavier, they were 
not always so heavy; but they 
ripened nicer and younger. They 
brought no more money. I gave 
them a fair test. I don’t think that 
they got any earlier lambs than the 
Shropshires. I don’t believe that 
there is much in the claim that they 
will tease the ewes to breeding early 
in the season. Your Dorsets are all 
right for winter lambs. I am con¬ 
vinced that there is no other sheep 
so good. But when it comes to keep¬ 
ing the lamb past the winter-lamb 
period, why, look at this Shrop¬ 
shire, now ! Did you ever see a 
Dorset that would like to look her 
in the face ? ” 
“ But, Mr. Todd, what did your 
early lambs bring you on the mar¬ 
ket?” 
“ At first, the best ones sold up to 
§8 each. They afterward dropped 
down to about $5, and late in the 
season, to much less when the rush 
of late-dropped came in.” 
“ Well, and what would the year¬ 
ling lambs, even as good as these, 
be worth, on the mutton market ? ” 
“ This lamb ought to weigh about 
130 pounds to-day. She would bring 
5 M cents per pound in Buffalo.” 
“ So, after all, it is the early lamb 
that brings the greater profit ? ” 
“ Yes, beyond a question. The 
early lamb eats less than one-quarter 
the food of the yearling. He escapes 
the many dangers that beset the lamb 
after he is weaned. As you know, 
half the lambs in Ohio to-day are diseased with tape¬ 
worms and other dangerous parasites. It is really 
easier to give two or three months of real good care 
and food to the lamb and its mother, than to give 
about half care for a year.” 
Further details of how really to succeed in the 
production of these winter lambs will be given later. 
I have stolen some ideas from Mr. Todd ; I have, 
also, stumbled on to a few facts in my own experi¬ 
ence. I am not in fear of leading to overproduction, 
for reasons that I have stated. j. e. wing. 
R. N.-Y.—While it is true that prices for choice hot¬ 
house lambs have been good, still, in this market, they 
have not been so high during the past two or three 
years as previously. Only a very small number of 
customers can pay the high prices at which these lambs 
formerly sold. Receipts have yearly been increasing, 
and prices have been decreasing. Still the prices of 
the best have not yefc declined below the profit point 
