186 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
Next in order then, will be tbe conveniencies of fattening. 
It is bad policy in this country to undertake to fatten sheep 
in winter, with no protection or shelter, save a few trees or 
the side of some old building. I recollect an instance of that 
kind of feeding, which I went to see some ten years ago, 
where a man had some three hundred sheep feeding, running 
in a four or five acre lot, without any protection, save sucli as 
I have just described. It rained a little while I was there, 
the ground was soft, although it was l^bruary, and his sheep 
(though otherwise nice and good ones), looked wet, lank and 
muddy; his feeding troughs were in this lot, all covered with 
mud, and some of the feed, on account of the mud in the 
trough, was left. I expostulated with him about his slovenly 
manner of feeding. He replied that he could do no better. I 
said to myself, this is your first and last winter feeding, and so 
it was. 
My buildings, which it will be well to describe as fully as 
possible, were put up with as much reference to storing the 
products of the farm as^ for protecting and sheltering the 
sheep. The barn first in order is nearly surrounded by other 
buildings; it is forty-four by forty-two fe^t, with twenty-foot 
posts, with upper and lower floors—horse and cow stables and 
granary, all below. Into this barn goes all the grain I raise, 
first, and then as much feeding hay as it will hold—and there 
was room this year for but very little. 
When I thresh my grain (which I always do in the fall), I 
put the straw mostly back into this large barn for feed and 
litter. The granary in this barn will hold about six hundred 
bushels of grain, and has an alley through the middle where 
the corn, oil-jneal, etc., is mixed for feeding the sheep. The 
upper and lower floors of the barn are used for hay, straw, etc., 
from one feeding to another. I have a wagon or carriage 
house close to this barn, twenty by thirty feet, with cellar the 
whole size, eight feet in the clear, middle and upper floors. 
This cellar is used exclusively for roots. The roots are gen¬ 
erally cut by machine, and every day at half-past twelve, are 
fed to the sheep. When I have plenty of them, we feed daily 
