Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1879-08-14
@eadina fpr the Sabbath. The farm and fire@ide,
SHEEP AS IMPR0YERs OF LAND.

Not only in the wool and mutton which
they furnish is the production OF sheep to
be valued, but otherwise in the aid they
furnish in fertlizing the soil upon which they
tread. This is made manifest in the able pa
pers prepared by Mr.. John L. Hayes, Secre:
tary of the National Wool Manufacturers
Association, and published by order of Con-
gress. He says sheep are the only animals
which do not exhaust the land upon which
they feed. They, on the contrary, perma.
nently improve it. Horned cattle, especially
COWS in milk, by continued grazing, ultimate
ly exhaust the pastures of their phosphates.
In England the pastures Of the county of
Chester, famous as cheese district, are kept
up only by the constant use Of bone dust.
Sheep, on the other hand, through the pecu-
liar fertilizng power of their manure and the
facility with which it is distributed, are found
to be the most economical and certain means
of constantly renewing the productiveness of
the land. BY the combination of sheep hus-
bandry with wheat culture, lands in England,
which, in the times of Elizabeth, produced,
on an average, six and a.half bushels of
wheat per acre, produce now over thirty bush
els. For these reasons, the recent practical
writer's in the journals Of the Royal Agrlcul.
tural Society of England pronounce that,
while there is no profit in growing sheep in
England simply for their mutton and wool,
sheep husbandry is still an indispensable ne
cessity, as the sole means of keeping up the
land.
Experience in the United States leads to
similar conclusions Mr.. Stilson, of Wiscon-
sin, by keeping sheep, is able to raise bis
twenty. -four bushels of wheat to the acre,
while the average yield of wheat in Wisconsin
is but ten bushels. There are cases in Yer
mont where sheep farmers have been COM
PEELED to abandon one farm after another as
they became 100 fertile for profitable sheep
growing Mr.. George Geddes, whom Hor-
ace Greeley used to regard as the highest au-
thority for agricultural matters in the State
of New York, and who has raised sheep for
many years in connection with wheat says
that with one sheep to the acre Of cultivated
land, pasture and meadows, he raises more
bushels or grain, on the average, than he did
when he had no sheep to manufacture his
coarse forage into manure, and to enrich his
pastures to prepare them for the grain crop;
that the land is constantly improving, and
the crop increasing in quantity; and that,
while producing crops on less acres and at
less than he did before he kept sheep, he has,
in addition, the wool and the mutton produced
by the sheep.
POULTRY FEEDING.--The manner of feed
ing poultry that are layers, is considerably
different fom that of feeding those that are
breeders. In the latter case we want eggs
that will hatch chickens with a strong consti.
tuition and good qualities while in the former
case we want eggs, and only eggs we care not
whether they will hatch or not our only aim
is to get the greatest number of eggs from our
fowls.
In order to accomplish this end. we keep
only pullets of last years hatch and feed all
they will eat of rich food constantly growing
richer. If they flag, we give stimulant to
impart to them fresh start-red pepper is the
cheapest and best thing for the purpose.
Fowls will continue to lay we'll the second
year, hut it will not be found as profitable to
feed them throughout their mouting season
as it would be to keep them "laying their
brst" for one year and then kill them. An
other thing; fyou only keep them one year,
You will have no "tongh fowls to haunt your
dreams.
There is one point to be remembered: it
takes certain amount of food to keep the
animal alive, and after that all the food eat
en- must 60 either to make eggs, to build the
body, or to produce fat 1t is nonsense to talk
ofpullets being "too fat to lay" With old
hens it may I've possible, but never had this
happen to any of mine, nor have known of
any one else that had fowl so affected, al
though friend OF mine keeps hopper of
corn always before his fowls, and from Octo-
ber till March, in addition to this, gives, night
and morning, feed of boiled corn meal, and
yet his fowls lay extremely well.-COrrespon'
dence Of Rural World.
GREEN Food FOR FoWIs.-Fowls cannot