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Show Questions of the Feed Loi Proes$or Herbtrt W. Hum ford Illinois CoJltg of AgrlculUut Stock Rofuso feed ti T AM SENDING to you to-day a smm sample of feed bought at 127 m r loi for ship stuff. My stock almost refuse v eat it. C;tn you tell mc whether it is shi stuff, or what it Is made of.' Does It cornpl; with our pure-food laws?" We have carefully examined the fcedln; stuff which j on sent uti, ancl as far n we ar able to Judge from suoh an examination un der the microscope, the material deems to b a straight wheat product. "We tun deled n foreign material, nor can we find other th wheat starch. Is the report of Dr, -II. f cirindley, chemist of this department, O course It is dlfllcult to say Just why the Mot! refused to eat it. I cannot detect anythlrv from the odor or appearance of it that woul' glvo any clew to the difficulty. Wheat hra' and middling, or a mixture of the two, whe riot adulterated with other feed, are not 8ub jtct to the Illinois feed-stuff laws. Thl product appears to ho a mixture of whea middlings und finely ground wheat bran. How To Start Sheep Raising "I have never kept any sheep. 1 see li It advocated by some that it In a rood rlar for every farmer to keep a few eheep ax J elde line. My fields are all well fenced and '. am thinking of starting a email Hock, llov many ewes should I get?" The percentage of prollt In sheep raising has nearly always proved greatest where a few xheep have been kept on a relatively largo area. In other words, if a few sheep are found very profitable and there Is apparent, ap-parent, opportunity for extending the Indus try on a farm by abandoning other lines o: farming It does not follow that by Increasing Increas-ing the number of sheep the same margin o: profit as obtained In case of the small Hock will be extended to the larger one. In this respect sheep mixing may be compared com-pared to poultry raising. The larger th number of sheep kept on a given area, thi greater the danger of losses from worms and other sheep ailments. Dy this It should l said that the position is nut taken that Iarci i flocks may not turn a satisfactory profit under un-der proper conditions, but the farmer wh keeps a few sheep as a side line and glvei them Intelligent care will ordinarily sccun tho largest percentage of possible prollt. Twenty-five breeding ewes, a ram and thy offspring until ready for market constitute a good number for each 10i) acres of Ian where sheep husbandry Is approached from the standpoint of u side line and not u specialty. spe-cialty. Where farm conditions are such as to In dlcate that jshep raising as a speclalt; should be the system of farming adopted then tho number per 100 acres should b largely Increased. The old rule when small Merino ewe' were quite generally kept on the farms ol the United States was that ten ewes could b looked tjpon as favoring the sheep eight such ewes are practically equivalent to on oC the cattle kind Now that the grade sheep of the country are largely infused with th blood of the larger Kngllsh mutton breeds l might safely be subl that where one know! about the cattle-carrying capacity of a farm tle or six limes as many sheep may I kept as of cnttle. This number would be somewhat Increased In-creased In case the farm was not especially a-daptcd for cattle production, but was suitable suit-able for sheep raising. Sheep will thrive or much poorer feed than cattle and are therefore there-fore particularly adapted for cheap. b hill; lands that should be kept almost continuously continu-ously in grass. |