Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-09-08
HOW TO KEEP SHEEP PRO.
FITABLY.

for mutton and wool. We are too ready
to consider our future markets as in
comparison with the present only, for
getting that we have just begun to
supply large foreign demand for NUT
ton, that our home consumption for
meat is certain to increase largely, and
that our wooden industry, only now in
the first stage of development, needs
every grade of wool, from the finest to
the coarsest, to supply the require
ments of rapidly increasing and ex-
acting population. Unfortunately, it
has been the habit with writers upon
agricultural subjects (though not with
agricultural writers) to mislead the
public ignorantly upon the matters
pertaining to sheep-keeping. They
have "made believe" that, to succeed
with sheep, one needs to have only a
poor, barren field that produces moth
ing but briers and weeds, and turn a
flock into it, to secure the doubling of
| the investment every year and to
change the barren field into a garden.
This is mistake, and has been a very
costly one to many new beginners,
who, of course, are the only persons
who could be thus misled.
For success and profit with sheep,
one must choose wisely both his flock
and his location The one must match
| the other. He must know how to man.
age his animals, tender and ready to
go astray as they are, and he must
use his knowledge with tact and skill.
There is nothing in all this that is
difficult to learn or to teach. Any boy or
man with common sense and that can
think and follow instructions may
keep sheep as well as the man who
has spent fifty years in herding them.
Better, in fact; because your ancient
shepherd is very apt to be prejudiced,
and to think "that all knowledge
dwells with him." so stupidity, some
times, that he can neither learn nor
forget anything nor accommodate him.
self to new ways and methods. In
sheep-keeping, nearly everything is
new in this country. They are new
breeds and old breeds with new habits
and newly formed requirements new
necessities growing out of our chang
ing methods of agriculture and new de-
mands of the markets. All these, as
they come up, need to be studied and
learned, and the fresh knowledge ap-
piled to practice.
In nearly every case that occurs, it
is he who begins in small way who
grows up to a larger and more sue
cessfull business. They are new re-
cruits enlisting in this industry every
day, who need to be started right and
to be kept right; else how would the
business grow, and how can these
learn without teacher? Perhaps this
fact is not considered by those exces-
cessively practical men who think
nothing can be learned from books OF
agricultural journals and yet they
themselves will talk by the hour to
any one who is interested enough to
listen. What these do verbally surely
others may do by their pens. And the
first thing to be impressed upon the
mind of man or a boy who would be,
come q shepherd would be to "make
haste slowly" to begin in small way
and extend as he learns to succeed A
small flock can be kept anywhere upon
the right sort of farm. The only
thing to avoid in selecting the land fol
flock is low, damp ground, with a
pond of stagnant water in it. This is a
fatal error. Disease turks in such a
spot The feet become diseased, and
disorders of the liver and digestive or
gans are sure to occur. Dry, high pas
ture, with clear running water or wa
tered from a well, is absolutely needed
for healthfulness in the flock and dry
clean, airy yards and pens are equally
necessary. Sheep will thrive better or
a high, exposed knoll during whole
winter, without any shelter and with
but moderate food, than in a warm
shed and a wet, filthy yard, with al
the best food that can be procured fol
them and the most tender care and cod
ding. To begin with, a few young
healthy ewes are selected for the pur-
pose required, be it either mutton
or lambs or wool. For mutton or lambs
chiefly, and wool only secondarily, the
common native sorts are the best !; pre-
ferring those with brown or smutty
faces and fore-legs, these marks be.
token relation to the hardest breeds
viz, brown-faced Cotswolds or the
dark-faced Down" breeds. They
should have broad foreheads, small
heads, broad backs, square Level
rumps, deep sides, and short, stout
legs. These points show hardness and
disposition to fatten or to bear large
healthy lambs. Fifty of these would
make sufficient flock for hundred
acre farm, where good care can be
given to them; and 10 to 20 handy
little flock where the wastes from feed
ing other stock, both in barn, yards, or
pastures, will be the chief dependence.
Mutton and market lambs should be
the principal dependence for profit any
where east of the Great West, where
perennial pasture can be procured fol-
next to nothing or where land is worth
more than $40 per acre. East OF the
Mississippi river there are a few local.
tiles where it will pay to keep flock
for wool alone; perhaps the only ex.
ceptions being in some parts OF the
Tennessee and North Carolina table
lands or mountain regions and in the
piney woods of Georgia, where the
"wire- grass" furnishes cheap pasture
age Perhaps the most profitable man.
ner of sheep-keeping is to procure a
well-selected lot of store sheep in the
fall and feed them through the winter
until fat, selling them for mutton as
they are fit for market. This invest
ment brings two dividends. One is the
enhanced value, which includes not
only the actual increased weight, but
the high market value per pound con-
sequent upon the better quality of the
| meat This piyes or should give a