The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1914-10-01
Raising Sheep in the Cornfield

FHOSE who have handled sheep on
the general farm know that these
animals can live, grow and make
mutton and wool On much waste herb
sge that few other animals Will eat.
Sheep are well known to be the great
est weed and sprout exterminators in
existence. The sheep farm is almost
universally q clean farm. The saving
that a medium sized flock of sheep will
make every year in cleaning fence rows
and Kidding fence lines and fields of
noxious weeds will practically. pay for
their keeping, especially whom they are
given credit for fertilizer scattered
over the farm to make the grasses and
other money crops grow better. Grassy
fence rows almost invariably follow
where sheep have trimmed the fence
rows of weeds and sprouts.
On every farm every year there is
waste green herbage that can not be
utilized by cattle, horses or hogs, owing
to other crops growing in the same
fields with the useless herbage. After
the last cultivation Of corn, for in
stance, different kinds of summer
grasses and many kinds of weeds spring
up between the rows and around the
sides of the cornfields. The only COM
mon way these weeds and summer
grasses can be destroyed is with the
hoe, an expensive and laborious process.
II cattle, horses or hogs were turned
into the cornfield to eat the summer
grasses, they would totally destroy the
corn, and no doubt in many cases in
jure themselves by overeating of the
new corn.
But sheep will effectively clean
eornfield of summer grasses, and al
most, if not all, of the weeds, and they
will do it without injuring the stand
ing corn. There is nothing sheep like
better in the way of green forage than
young foztail and crabgrass, or COW s.
foot. Other summer grasses they will
eat readily, as well as almost all weeds
that grow in eornfields. Ragweeds are
their favorite. When turned into
field of standing corn a few weeks
after the last cultivation Of the crop,
about the time the corn begins to shoot
and tassel, they will 60 up and down
the rows nipping off the grass and
weeds as they come to them, scarcely
touching the blades Of the standing
corn. Later, when they have cleaned
the field Of weeds and grass, and the
fsnce rows around the field, they will
eat the lower blades of corn, but they
will not injure the ear corn nor the
upper part of the stalks in the least.
In doing this work of cleaning and
keeping clean the cornfield, they scat
ter manure of the best kind between
all the rows, which is one of the best
fertiizations the field can receive.
On many farms, foxtail and crab
grass are serious pests to the sol. In
spite of care and clean cultivation they
come up, grow and reseed the land
every year. There seems to be no com
mon way Of eradicating them. But
sheep viii do 1t to q clean finish.
Where a flock of sheep is turned into
cornfield shortly after the last cul-
tivation, before any of the summer
grasses have blossomed and formed
seed, they win clean out the grasses
and completely prevent seeding. Where
this system is followed on the summer
grassinfested farm, soon the farm will
b. cleaned of the grasses, as the plants
viii be prevented from forming seed.