the catching of the larger lambs when two or three weeks old, and carrying them to the troughs, handling them so gently as to awaken no alarm, and putting them down beside it, placing a little food in their mouths, when presently they will get the taste and begin eating of their own accord. After one or two have found the feed, the others will by imitation soon follow, until all will be eating greedily as little pigs.

The writer has found it a good practice sometimes to sprinkle a little coarse brown sugar over the grain to induce them to eat it at a very early age. The main ingredient of the lamb's ration must be wheat bran, which should be freshly ground, preferably from the local mill, seeing that it is more palatable than that which has been stored in bulk. To this must be added cracked corn not finely ground, with oats, a trifle of oil meal or of soy beans. This ration is elastic and may be varied according to what is required of the lambs. Should they be destined for very early slaughter, as "hot house' lambs, bran, corn and soy beans will make them very fat at an early age. This ration would, unless the corn was restricted, be unsuitable for lambs intended to remain upon the farm, or to be sold as breeders, seeing that it would develop an extreme degree of fatness at too early an age, and these lambs pushed thus to premature ripeness would never thereafter make as strong and valuable sheep. Not that there is any danger of developing the muscle and bone of the sheep too fast, but upon the ones destined to live their natural life one should avoid putting on too much juvenile fat. There are, of course, many combinations of rations that would be suitable for these suckling rams. One that occurs to the writer that he has often used in his own practice is a mixture of corn, bran and oil meal, giving the following proportion: 40 lbs. of coarse cracked corn, 40 lbs. of wheat bran and 20 lbs. of coarse ground oil meal. To this may be added any amount of oats desired, seeing that cats themselves contain an almost perfectly balanced ration. And if soy beans are available they may constitute about 10 per cent. of the ration with excellent results. The manner of feeding these lambs is important. They have very delicate appetites and sensitive nostrils, and the least mussiness or filthiness in the food is resented by them, so that it is better to put it in twice every day, taking out all that may be left over and feeding it to the ewes. The prospective shepherd may hesitate at the thought of giving the lambs this generous treatment at so early an age, but indeed a pound of food given the lamb while suckling his mother will make as much gain as ten pounds would make fed some months later, and the trifling amount of time and care consumed in this work is repaid many times over. Besides this the lambs early ripened in this manner command very fancy prices, and come into the market at a time when they are not competing with the flood of cheaply raised lambs from the western ranges. sides the ground food mentioned, the lambs relish very much ear corn, and like to shell it off themselves grain by grain, and it is best to feed them quite a little in this way. After that they will soon take it so readily from the ear that the shepherd may cease to give the cracked corn altogether, and feed only the bran, oats and soy beans in their trough. Beside the grain fed, the lambs should have

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all the nice early cut and well cured clover and alfalfa hay that they will consume and all the water they will drink, that also as clean and pure as though for human drinking. The ewes also will require large amounts of water at this time, and careful attention to these details is necessary. Exercise is not particularly essention to either ewes or lambs when the lambs are to be sold fat at the age of a few weeks. In fact too much exercise will cause a muscular development, and the lack of fat will be fatal to this aim. However if the lambs are pure bred, or are intended to remain during their natural lives upon the farm, they should be permitted and encouraged to roam the fields and take all the exercise they will. Fresh air and sunlight are both absolutely essential, and better a cold barn well aired than a warm one close and illy ventilated.

There are a number of troubles that sometimes afflict the little fellows during the first few weeks of their life. One is sore mouth. This affliction is characterized by little scabs along the edges of the mouth and upon the lips, these scabs being quite sore and interfering with eating. Similar sores and scabs will appear upon the teats of the ewes, and doubtless they are communicated from one to the other. Authorities seem to disagree as to the cause of this ailment, and some gravely prescribe physic and internal medication as a cure, but the writer has never found anything necessary except to rub off the scabs and apply to the sore surface some of the coal tar sheep dips, using them in a raw state, and merely wetting the surface of the sores. Of course one should not use enough to injure the lamb by making it swallow any of the medicine. This treatment quickly destroys the germ which is the undoubted parent of the disease, and in a few days the mouth is sound and well. The same treatment applied to the ewes' teats will effect a speedy cure. Sometimes sore eyes become epidemic with the lambs, and this also proceeds from some germ or other, and the cure is along the same line as indicated for the sore mouth; merely to wash the side of the head with a strong solution of carbolic dip, and see to it that a little of the liquor penetrates to the ball of the eye, where by the violent winking of the lamb it is carried to every part and almost an immediate cure will result. With all these little ailments a stitch in time saves many times nine.

This course of heavy feeding to very young lambs may seem an unnecessarily expensive thing to the novice, who would be inclined to feeding more savingly and thus lengthen out the time required to bring the lambs to maturity. Let him be assured, however, that it is because of the greater cheapness of this course that it is recommended, seeing that at this very early age the lamb's digestion and assimilation are so nearly perfect that every atom of food given goes to a useful purpose, and in the homely phrase of the shepherd, "It sticks to the ribs." The old-time method of slow development and of long keeping the lambs while they attain growth is unprofitable to-day when compared with the modern method of supplying at the time when best the lamb can use it what nutrition it desires. Lambs thus pushed forward will soon be ready for market. If they are born at a very early season, say in December, January or early February, they will, at the age of six or eight weeks,

be fat for the fancy "hot house" trade, and when properly dressed, command in the New York and Philadelphia markets, very long prices. "Hot house" lambs (the term "hot house" being merely a distinguishing name, and not meaning that they are to be grown by artificial heat), do not sell by weight, although the market requires them to be between 35 and 50 lbs., but are sold on their merits strictly as shown by their fatness. Thus a very strong and very fat lamb may sell for $10.00 or $12.00, while an older one, heavier, but not so fat, may sell as low as $3.50. Even if the lambs are not born early enough to be fed for this fancy trade, they will pay well if they are fed a little later on. They may be pushed right along until grass comes, and then after the grass becomes sweet, finished upon grass with ear corn or other grain fed very much as little pigs would be.

There is no excuse for the rearing of lambs according to the western ranch methods, in Pennsylvania, nor will it be found profitable to grow them in a similar fashion, bringing them to market at the same time when the western lambs come, and thus competing directly with the man who does not own his land nor need to provide much winter feed, but who grows his lambs by the thousands at the lowest cash outlay.

FATTENING EWES AND LAMBS TOGETHER.

Fed as we have indicated very generously during the period of suckling their lambs, the ewes will begin, after the lambs are some weeks old, to lay on flesh quite rapidly. The shepherd can take advantage of this fact if he has a lot of old ewes that will presently leave the farm, and continue to push these ewes forward, so that when their lambs are sold, after a few weeks of further feeding they will be ripe for the market. This indeed is quite a favorite practice with some successful shepherds who buy a new set of ewes each year, taking from them but one crop of lambs, or from some of them two crops, and sending them all to market in a continual procession. There is danger indeed unless the shepherd is watchful, that as the ewe's milk flow diminishes, she will, unless the food is decreased, gain in flesh to her detriment. Supposing she is to remain upon the farm another year, it is not desirable that she should become very fat at this season, seeming that she has the entire long summer in which to recuperate, and as excessive fatness would diminish her value as a breeder and perhaps prevent her from breeding again at all. Therefore as the lambs get older and the ewe's milk diminishes they should be fed a little more sparingly. It is not necessary, however, to limit them in the amount of good sound hay consumed, and such foods as silage, and roots, having a tendency to stimulate milk flow without laying on much flesh, are very suitable at this time.

CARE OF EWES AFTER TAKING AWAY THE LAMBS.

Supposing that the lambs are taken from the ewes before they are weaned; it is often best to give to the ewe another lamb, one perhaps of a pair of late-dropped twins. This is not very easy of accomplishment, seeing that the ewe by long companionship with her older lamb has become acquainted with its size and character

istics so thoroughly. The writer has found it best to make no effort toward persuading her to adopt the stranger, but to confine her head at once in a pair of stanchions and let the lamb nurse whether she will or no. A few days of this treatment, reconciles her to her foster child and all is well. Supposing that there is no other lamb to take her milk, she should be removed from the company of her sisters and given for a few days a feeding of good oat straw or timothy hay without grain or succulent food. Thus after milking her out once or twice and withholding the milkmaking foods, she will cease to secrete milk at all.

SPRING CARE AND MANAGEMENT.

After the advent of warm days in March the ewe flock will begin to feel oppressive their heavy fleeces, and if well fed during winter, they may begin to shed their wool in patches, especially along the neck, caused, no doubt, by some irritation from chaff or seeds getting next the skin. It is a wise plan to shear the flock as soon as warm weather comes in March or early April, provided that there is fairly suitable shelter given where they may take refuge from the storms that will occasionally come as late as May. The writer is aware that this early shearing is contrary to the practice of old shepherds, but having practiced it upon his own flock for many years without ever having had cause to regret it, he unhesitatingly commends it. It may be thought by some that by shearing thus early there will be secured less weight of wool than if the shearing were delayed for a month or two. Taking, however, a series of years into consideration, this will not be found true, and as much wool will be secured by shearing in March as by shearing in April or May, and probably a little more, owing to the greater thrift of the sheep, induced by their comfort under the better conditions afforded by the removal of their burdensome fleeces. There is another reason why this early shearing is desirable, and that is that it causes the ewes to come promptly to shelter whenever it storms, which they will not do if they have on their winter's fleeces, indeed the full fleeced sheep is hardly aware that rain is falling until it is thoroughly wet through, after which it requires many hours to again become dry, and ewes will most provokingly remain out in the storm, keeping their lambs with them when the whole flock would be better off under roof, and after the fleeces are taken away, they will upon the first downfall of rain or snow, fly to the shelter, taking their lambs with them. It is well if the shepherd can personally do the shearing of his ewe flock. It need not be done all at once, and even if he can shear but 25 sheep a day, he will soon get over an ordinary flock. The shepherd will naturally handle the sheep more gently than a hireling would, and in the process of shearing he learns more fully than he had known the bodily characteristics of each ewe, becoming better acquainted with her form and condition than he had been. He may, if a careful man, shear so close and carefully that each stray tick that may happen to be present, will be cut in two by a clip of the shears, and thus if there be put a half dozen in the flock, they can be destroyed and their increase prevented.

USE OF THE HAND SHEARING MACHINE.

The use of the hand shearing machine is to be commended to the man who shears his own sheep. These machines are now so well perfected that they do very excellent work, cutting far smoother and closer than is possible with hand shears and not making any incisions in the skin, whereas old experienced shearers will shear more rapidly with the hand shears than with the machine, but the reverse is true of the inexperienced men. He will shear three sheep with the machine, with less labor, than he would shear one by hand. However, if one must hire old shearers to do the work, he had better allow them to use their accustomed tools.

WHEN GRASS COMES IN SPRING.

It is easy to make a serious blunder when first green grass comes in the spring, for the ewes that have been reaming the fields during the winter now find this quick-springing young grass so tender and delicious that they are very eager for it and neglect other food in order to seek it. There are two evils resultant from this practice. First, the ewes get little or no nourishment from the grass when first it springs green, and next, the grass itself is prevented from growing, so that a given amount of pasture grazed thus early will not return more than half the sustenance that it would, if allowed to get a start before the stock is turned on. It is wise, therefore, to confine the flock to their yard as soon as grass begins to green, and notwithstanding their calls and longing glances pastureward, to compel them to eat dry food until the grass has actually made good growth and the sun has had time to get in it and sweeten it. Upon the western ranch, where the author once resided, cattle ate only sun-cured wild grasses in winter and thereon maintained good flesh, when green grass came in spring, however, they forsook the search for the dry and rather tough grasses of the previous year's growth, and sought only the fresh-springing green stuff. The result was that they rapidly lost flesh and strength so that death from starvation sometimes resulted at the very time when the novice would have considered his troubles over. After once the grass has grown sweet and strong it is great delight to turn the flock to pasture, and wonderful are the gains that both ewes and lambs will make during the cool days of May and early June, with the conditions perfect of both temperature and food, without the fear as yet, of internal parasites afflicting the flock. The ewes, of course, will need no grain when upon the grass, but the lambs will make very large return for corn or oats fed them in connection with this grazing. The writer has practiced feeding ear corn in "creeps" made by setting hurdles about the corner of the pasture, for lambs born too late to go away dressed, and these lambs have made marvelous gains at very slight expense of grain at this time. One lot born in March, averaging above 80 lbs. on the 8th day of June when they sold for something more than $5.00 each, at home.. These lambs, had they not been pushed from growth, would have remained in his care all summer and in the fall would have weighed perhaps 80 lbs. and have been worth less than $4.00 each, beside having had to run the gauntlet