The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1879-01-04
TOPICS FOR THE FARM

Wintering Sheep.-The first month
OF winter, says the National Lioe Stock
Journal, more than any subsequent
period, determines the success OF the
flock through the feeding season The
maximum quantity of food should be
reached by gradual increase from a be-
ginning, extending back into the graz
ing season, and maintained at the point
where it is thoroughly consumed. The
poor economy of undertaking has often
been deprecated in these columns. In
defensible under any normal condition,
it is doubly so when the cereals are as
cheap as at the present time, in the
agricultural sections. Corn is selling
at majority of the stations within two
hundred miles of Chicago at less than
twenty-five cents per bushel. In view
of this fact, the hock-master who per-
mits his sheep to pass through the
winter in any condition short of No. l.,
makes mistake which next spring will
bring home to his appreciation with an
intensity that will not allow it to be for
gotten.
The propriety of feeding corn in heavy
quantities is somewhat of an open ques-
ton with breeders in Eastern States.
The writer recalls an instance in which
SO eminent an authority as DR.. Randall
questioned the propriety of feeding over
half pint of corn per head daily. This
sounded oddly to men who had daily
ted three bushels to the hundred sheep
for years in succession, with an added
bushel when fattening was desired. The
of
owners is, that il prudently increased
from a small beginning, all the corn
that sheep can be made to eat can safely
be fed through the entire winter, if ac-
companied by hay or other well-cured
fodder. This course implies the oppor-
tunlty for exercise under proper condi-
lions of weather. But it is rarely nee
essary for the farmer to depend so en-
tlrely upon grain for the sustenance of
the flock. He can utilize straw, rye
fields, and other dead capital about the
farm. The value of stalk fields in corn
growing localities, is rarely sufficiently
appreciated by the stock-owner. Very
few men gather corn so carefully as not
to leave half-bushel or over to the
acre. This, with the dried blades and
WIG b aSocn anu WeeuS WHICH 100 often
creep in, will be thoroughly culled out
and utilized by the flock if permitted
access when the weather is dry and the
ground frozen. The almost ubiquitous
cockle-bur is the greatest drawback to
this item of foraging. In its absence,
the stalk-feld is commended to the
farmer who is the owner of sheep, as
source of profit and convenience Not
only is there On immediate benefit real
lied upon the sheep, but much of the
labor of cleaning the field for subse-
quent crop is obviated. The seeds of
weeds and grasses consumed in winter,
leave so much less to be fought by the
husbandman the following season,
while the droppings from the animals
add to the quantity and quality of the
grain yield. This foraging upon stalk
fields, combining as it does the essen
tials of food and exercise, with the ais
tribution of manure where it is most
needed, should prove an incentive to a
cultivation that will eradicate burs and
other wool-damaging weeds from the
corntield, in which event double gain
will have been realized, not alone to
the farmer, but TO the whole country as
well.