Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1874-08-22

SHEEP AS A CLEANSING CRoP.- How to
clear our pastures of brush and weeds is
a very important question Ill all oul
grazing districts. As q matter of fact,
upon most dairy farms it requires the
utmost vigilance and considerable ex,
pense annually in cutting brush to keep
them clean. The grazing of COWS an
young cattle alone will not clean the
land from brush and weeds. Patches
of briars, whortleberry, sweet fern,
hazel-nuts, scrub,oak, or other brush
spring up, and spread year by year until
the grass Is crowded out, and the land
is covered with a young growth of for
est-trees. In many of the older states
there are large tracts of land now cover
ed with timber, that forty years ago were
in pasture. In the case of rough, hilly
land that can never be ploughed, this
return to forest is often desirable, but
a certain portion of every farm is need
ed for pasture, and if animals can be
substituted for human labor in killing
brush and weeds, it is exceedingly de-
sirable to know it. We recently visited
two farms lying side by side, with no
perceptible difference in the quality or
moisture of the soil. The pasture lands
were only separated by a stone fence,
but something much broader than a
fence line had separated the manage
ment Of the two farmers. The one
pasture had been grazed by cattle for a
long term of years, and the policy had
gone to seed in a magnificent growth of
alders, whortleberry brush, young ma
Piles, vervain, thistles and golden rod,
briars and other brush and weeds.
There were patches of grass in perhaps
one quarter of the field, where the COWS
got a scanty living. The other pasture,
in addition to its cattle, had the CON
slant tread of a flock of one hundred
and sixty sheep, and their hoofs in this
case certainly had been gold. Besides
all the wool, mutton, and lambs sold
from the flock, they had paid for their
Keeping every year in freeingthe pasture
of brush and coarse weeds, and IN en-.
riching it with their manure. There
was no brush of any considerable size,
and very few weeds. And we learned
from the proprietor hat sheep were the
only agents employed in keeping the
field clean. They had nibbled the
young shoots every year as they started,
and what they had not killed out
right by this cropping they had kept
even with the grass. There was good
feed in every part of this pasture, even
latein thefall, and the owner of this farm
used this contrast between these ad-
ioing pastures as a standing argument in
favor of sheep h%usbandry. It was very
much to the point. II it is true, as
George Geddes asserts, that sheep in
certain proportion to cattle pay their
way in a pasture naturally clean, they
must pay much better in pasture in
clined to produce brush and weeds.
We have had occasion to notice the
beneficial effects Of the grazing of sheep
upon another farm that has been under
observation several years. They have
not only subdued sweet fern, briars.
and thistles, but have greatly improved.
The grasses. The sod is much thicker
and heavier, and the white clover has
come in where once it made no show at
all. In pastures where the brush is
strong, and higher than the
sheep can reach, it cannot be expected
hat they will conquer. But if the
brush be cut for q season or two, and
he sheep turned in sufficient numbers
lpon the young growth, they will keep
t under and eventually destroy it.
This is much cheaper than the scythe
nd pillow perpetually. american Ag.
icuLturist.