PRACTICAL PAPERS—FATTENING SHEEP. 
189 
temporary one I used last winter), is thirty-five by thirty-six 
feet, eighteen foot posts. The upper part of this shed is filled 
in summer with feeding hay for the sheep, to be fed out in 
winter; twenty-one by thirty-six feet of this shed has also 
manure piled under in summer, .used as the others in the fall, 
and together with an open yard about thirty-six by forty feet, 
holds seventy-five sheep. These seventy-five sheep, together 
with the yard containing sixty sheep, get their water from a 
well standing between the two yards. Of this shed, fourteen 
by thirty-six feet is floored and partitioned ; one-half of it is 
used for a horse stable when needed, and into the other half 
I always put twenty of my best sheep. 
I have now giv^m as well as I can, a description of the 
buildings and arrangements I use, and although many of you 
may have better ones, still I must say I am very well satisfied 
with mine. I will now say something of feeding apparatus, 
and may premise with the declaration that all claimed improve¬ 
ments in sheep-feeding arrangements that have come under 
my observation for the last ten or twelve years, I have always 
examined very carefully, but have universally found after 
looking them over, that for fattening sheep, all things con¬ 
sidered, they were no better than mine. For breeding sheep, 
however, I think there are better ones. I have a feeding box 
(after which I made others) sent me by my friend, William 
Chamberlain, Esq., the noted fine-wool sheep-breeder, which 
for breeding sheep is all that could be desired, as we can 
afford to take a little more time, and have little waste and 
trouble with a few nice breeders. When, however, we come 
to fattening five, six or eight hundred sheep, it makes quite a 
difference whether one man can take care of them, or whether 
we must have two ; as an extra hand through the feeding 
season will cost, wages and board, with us, at least one hund¬ 
red and fifty dollars. Then, also, it makes quite a difference 
whether five hundred waste a pint of grain per day, which I 
am satisfied was more than my whole flock wasted last winter, 
or whether they waste half a bushel per day; and I have seen 
more than that wasted by bad fixtures and management, there- 
