The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-11-25
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Sheen and Their Pasture.

Sheep and Their Pasture.
A little looking ahead will enable a
farmer to adapt his sheep to the markets
around him, and this should always be
done. Even when remote from market,
if the owner is willing to take the pains
and establish a flock adapted to the pur-
pose, he may rear lambs for any market
where there is demand. Thus New York
is supplied with lambs from Virginia and
North Carolina. and the intermediate ter
ritory, and also from the West.
An essential thing for the small farmer
to do is to prepare a field for the keep
ing of sheep before he purchases them.
Unrulv sheep are a terrible pest on a
farm, and there is no need of their ever
becoming so, if properly managed. A
low fence will keep sheep in a pasture
provided they cannot climb over it. The
poorest fence is a stone wall, unless there
are rails on it in stakes; the rails will
force the sheep back if they attempt to
climb over it. A barbed wire, so strong
that the head of the sheep will hit it in
attempting to get over, is the cheapest,
and at the same time a sure preventive.
I have had walls of stone made three and
a half feet high, with q row of sticks
under the capstones projecting over SIX
inches, and these were cffectual in keep
ing sheep. A rail or board fence is also
Just the thing. When sheep are kept in
one field for several years they learn to
know the lot, and if turned out in the
spring they will 60 to it, and when once
in do not care to leave it. They arc
never uneasy but at home, and this is q
good feeling with sheep or any other
animals.-New York Hruld.
The brushwood and other litter left is
the woods and known by lumbermen an
''lumbermen's waste" so apt to occasion
forest fires, was a subject of consldera-
tion at the meeting of the American
Forestry congress. The subject was
introduced in a paper read by Mr.. B. E.
Furnow, of New York, who proposed TO
prepare q bedding material from the
lumbermen's litter and transport it to
the WORKOUT farms of the Eastern
States.
The arguments used by Mr.. Farnow in
favor of lumbermcn's waste as a fertilizer
were in substance as follows: Wood lit
ter furnishes q better and cleaner bed
ding for cattle than straw; the liquids
are more perfectly absorbed and the dry
excrements are quickly enveloped with
woody fibre that prevents the soiling of
cattle. Then the removal of the bedding
requires less time, as only parts of it
need be changed. The air of the stables
is less damp and is kept purer in conse-
quence of the total absorption of all
moisture and the slower decomposition
of the urine.
This bedding matcria. makes better
manure than the straw bedding, because
the wood litter binds the excrements
better and retards decomposition and
loss Of plant food, especially the nitro
genous compounds.
MI. Farnow felt justified in his re-
marks because lumbermen's waste has
been experimental with in Europe with
very satisfactory results in the
described. Not content, however, with
the testimony of European experimenters
MI. Farnow reported testimony given be-
fore the Ontario Agricultural commission
relating to the value of sawdust, first as
a bedding and then as a fertilizer. AIr.
Farnow's proposition was, however, not
to confne the experiments to sawdust,
but to use a better mode ofdisintegrated
brushwood, which, in his opinion, would,
greatly surpass the former. The more
fbrous condition of such material would
he argued. augment its absorbing capac.
ity; beside those parts of the tree II
tanned in larger amount the important
plant food desired in the manure. -NeU
York World.