Vol. LXXII. No. 4190. 
NEW YORK, FEBRU 
1913 
SHEEP ON THE ORDINARY FARM. 
Supplying Home Needs for Meat and Wool. 
AN ORCHARD COMBINATION.—All through 
the East a lively interest is being manifested in the 
possibilities of sheep raising. This is due in part to 
the high price of all fresh meats, and in part to a 
desire to utilize the large acreage of rough land that 
is better suited to pasturing sheep than cattle. While 
it is doubtful if extensive sheep farms will ever be 
developed again through the East, this branch of live¬ 
stock industry combines so well with other lines of 
farming that it is bound to come into more general 
at a premium as grain- 
entirely out of the way 
interfere with the busy 
there is the added adva 
manure, which he uses tf 
his extensive meadows, 
hay, while most of the 
nearby town. Some of 
ers of Connecticut, who 
WEEKLY. $1.00 PER YEAR 
sheep are 
i^y do not 
ClWith him 
..nitrogenous 
•3^'of hay on 
the rowen 
marketed in a 
fruit grow- 
of hill pas¬ 
ture, find that they can keep sheep the year through 
and fatten late-dropped lambs during the Summer. 
At the North ewes dropping lambs in April or May 
need very little special care during the Winter, and 
those remote from large centers, far too little fresh 
beef and lamb, and far too much fresh or salted pork, 
are used. In the “good old days” of curing and 
smoking beeves, as well as pork, and when fresh 
mutton was used and “swapped” more than now, there 
was a far greater variety of meats available on the 
average farm. The transfer of both beef and sheep 
raising to the West changed conditions entirely, and 
on most farms of the East, the only home source of 
meat to-day is pork and fowls. The high price of all 
meats for the past year or two is causing renewed 
interest in home-grown beef and mutton. On most 
farms mutton is better adapted than beef for meeting 
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A FARM FLOCK OF SHEEP ENJOYING THE ORCHARD. Fig. 60. 
practice again as soon as the profit becomes more 
manifest. A number of fruit growers of my ac¬ 
quaintance are raising sheep to advantage, because 
the business provides \\ inter employment for the help 
and so simplifies the labor problem by affording yearly 
employment to reliable help. Good help avoid farms 
where they have to shift for themselves for three or 
four months during the Winter. Then, too, some 
form of livestock is needed on most fruit farms to 
consume the coarse fodders. Sheep have the added 
advantage of requiring little if any care during the 
Summer and Fall, when the fruit business is on the 
>ush. Mr. Lyman, one of Connecticut's largest peach 
and hay growers, has found good profit in fattening 
western lambs during the Winter and selling them 
warm quarters do not have to be provided. Very few 
lambs are lost while young, and they soon go to 
pasture, and fatten rapidly on milk of the ewes to¬ 
gether with the tender grasses of the early Summer. 
During July and August, in regions where Summer 
resorts are located, private families and hotels will 
often buy lambs, in whole or parts, and pay a good 
price for choice meat. If only the legs and chops 
can be sold the shoulders, necks and flanks can be 
used with good economy at home. 
HOME MEAT AND WOOL.—I believe, however, 
that the place where sheep will fit in to best advan¬ 
tage in the near future will be the keeping of small 
flocks of about 20 ewes, mainly to increase the home 
supply of meat and wool. On many farms, especially 
the family needs.. Nearly every farmer to-day puts 
up a supply of ice, and with very little effort a corner 
of the icehouse can be boxed off and used as * 
cooler. If this is well protected by a thick wall of saw¬ 
dust on two outsides, and two sides and the top come 
next to the ice, it will provide a good dry cooler 
if the top of the box is made water-tight. With such 
a cooler a couple of lambs can be hung for a week 
if necessary, and the meat will improve by “ripening.’* 
Of if a good cooler is not available, neighbors could 
arrange for the exchange of lamb. By wrapping in 
clean burlap and then in a woolen blanket fresit meat 
can be held several days by placing it on the top layer 
of ice in the ice house and covering the whole well 
with sawdust. The Winter meat supply can be readily; 
j 
