several miles in tanks. During the coldest weather, sheep will drink 
only a quart of water per day a head, but in warm weather five to six 
quarts is an ordinary amount. It is probable that this fact exerts a 
large infiuence on the live weight of sheep at different periods of the 
year. The sheep on the College Farm gained rapidly during October 
on a moderate allowance of food. With the first real cold weather in 
November, they increased nearly half on the amount of food con¬ 
sumed, but the live weight decreased decidedly. Then there was a 
steady slow gain through the three winter months. When the first 
warm days of spring came, they made a sudden large gain in weio-ht 
with no corresponding increase of food. After this the gain was 
again fairly constant, or at least, in accordance with the food eaten. 
Opinions differs widely as to the amount of salt required by fat¬ 
tening sheep. The most common practice is to keep lumps of rock 
salt where the sheep can lick them. Under these conditions the 
sheep will scarcely eat two ounces of salt apiece. Some feeders sup¬ 
ply the sheep with all the coarsely-ground salt they will eat, which 
is more than a pound per head. Others never give any salt at all 
The results seem to be equally good under each method. All the 
water of Colorado in winter is strongly alkaline and the theory of 
those who feed little salt is, that the w^ater contains all the salt the 
sheep need. It is also a fact that alfalfa hay contains enormous 
quantities of salt. 
Another undetermined point in the economy of sheep feeding is 
the matter of shearing. Soutliern lambs are so light of fleece that 
they never need shearing in the fall. But, if they are to be fed until 
the last of May, they get very fat and their thick fleece at that time 
makes them suffer from the heat. If they should happen to be 
shipped during a hot spell there would be danger of large death 
losses. If sheared six weeks before shipping, they will grow enough 
more rapidly to make up the weight of the wool, shrink less in ship¬ 
ping, and pack quite a number more in a car, lessening the freight 
charges per head. The cost of shearing is five cents per sheep, and 
the wool is about four pounds, worth thirty cents per head. When, 
however, these shorn sheep reach the Chicago market, they sell for 
less per pound, even as much as 35 cents per hundred, or about 30 
■cents per sheep. This is sufficient to take away all the profit of 
shearing. Therefore, but few southern lambs are shorn before ship¬ 
ment. The same is true of southern wethers and ewes. 
With the western sheep the case is quite different. They are 
larger, the fleece is longer and grows earlier. They have to be 
sheared if they are to be fed late in the spring. It is probably best 
to shear them in the fall as soon as they are brought to the yards, so 
that the wool will start again before cold weather. They then grow 
more rapidly through the winter, and the wool in the spring will be 
almost as heavy as though they had never been sheared. This fall 
shearing applies only to good, well grown lambs. Wethers and ewes 
