PRACTICAL PAPERS—FATTENING SHEEP. 
195 
I hold that the noses of the sheep should be smeared with 
tar, at least four times through the feeding season ; first, when 
they are brought homo in the fall; second, when they go into 
their winter quarters, and then twice during the winter. By 
doing this, we prevent all trouble with colds and foul noses. 
The old method of catching and holding the sheep to perform 
this operation made it a laborious task, and I now practice a 
new and easier way of doing it. We simply take two or three 
of the sheep-boxes which I have already described, which are 
loose and can be set anywhere, and make a small yard under 
the shed, and drive the sheep in, and pack them closely ; one 
man holds the bucket of tar, and two or three, each with a 
wooden tar ladle, jump right in among the sheep, and without 
catching or holding the sheep, put the tar on, commencing at 
one end and coming out at the other; and this job, for six or 
eight hundred sheep that used, in the old way, to take us almost 
all day, can now be done in less than two hours, besides being 
so much less injurious to the sheep. 
When I went into the sheep-feeding business years ago, it 
was more with a view to the consequent improvement of the 
land (it would hardly grow a crop of beans then), than to 
make the ready dollar. In this I have fullv succeeded. I 
wanted to make two spears of grass grow where but one grew 
before, and I am sure I am getting three, some of my neigh¬ 
bors say four ; however, I call it three. The meadows that 
used to cut from one-half to one ton of hay per acre, now 
yield on an average over two. Raising rye was then out of 
the question; last year I got from about sixteen acres, four 
hundred bushels of rye, and straw enough to have amounted 
to near nine hundred dollars, if I had sold it (which I never 
do, unless I replace it by hay for bedding, as I have done this 
year, getting three tons of hay to one of straw). This year I 
got from forty-five bushels sowing, fifty loads. 
For fear of misleading you, I must say, with all the experi¬ 
ence and precaution in buying, good fixtures, plenty of feed, 
litter, care, etc., you will not always succeed. For though I 
have for the last twelve years studied the thing closely, and 
