table spoonfuls of turpentine, which will float on the liquid, and get on the wool. For the grub in the head, I have filled the hollow in the top of the skull with turpentine, with good success. I cured it in one case after the sheep had spasms, but it lost one of its eyes. I use five pounds of sulphur for a hundred sheep each year, and mingle saltpetre with the salt. Two weeks of sulphur and salt will kill the ticks. Sheep are liable to bloat, from fresh feed, especially from white clover. I give a table-spoonful of saltpetre. It is also good for cattle. If you can give the animal a quarter of a pound, and get it into his stomach before the gases explode, you have saved the animal. Nothing that passes through a sheep ever sprouts. We have scrofula among Merino sheep, sometimes. I have perhaps one case a year. They generally die. Sheep want water just as other animals do. They drink oftener than other animals, and I am sure it contributes to their health. But they will live without water. FITCH--I have kept them in a pasture where there was no water. I turned them into water, and few would drink. LAWRENCE-True; but in a dry time they go to water. As to French Merinos, I would as soon keep a cow. They cost more to keep than the Cotswold, are tender, and their fleece is coarse. They are not the sheep for the North. The best hay for sheep is clover properly cured. Next to this is fine upland prairie grass. Hungarian grass is good. Clover I cure in this way: I commence mowing about four o'clock P. M., and cut till dark; let it lie until next day after dinner; then turn over the heavy spots, rake it up and put it in small bunches. I let it lie a day or two, then shake it up and put it into the barn. Corn is an excellent grain to produce wool, but is dangerous for breeding ewes. My brother fed his ewes plenty of corn. The lambs had silky hair, and legs as limber as a string. He lost most of his lambs. I feed half corn and half oats, and have no trouble. MILLER-In 1864 I put my sheep on wheat stubble, and they appeared to tread out the chinch bug. WILCOX-I have been much interested. I would have been fifty dollars better off if I had heard Judge Lawrence about the bloat three months ago. I have also found the lambs weak from the ewes eating corn. I stack my grain in the field, and have tried to make the manure in the field, but the sheep won't stay out there. But I scatter straw in the yard in the morning, and they pick up a good deal; and will pack down and make manure of a good deal in this way. With one feed of hay a day they do well. I thought I would get a larger class of sheep, and crossed with Leicester or Cotswold. I got large, fine looking lambs, now two crops of them. But I found this year that it does not work well. The yearlings decline in a flock of 300 or 400. I think they can't be kept in large flocks. I lost 25 out of 130 lambs. The grades do not shear as heavy as the three-quarters Spanish Merinos. Yearlings, sheared five and a-half pounds instead of six and ahalf. A friend of mine has succeeded well in breeding Southdowns upon Merinos, and then upon Leicesters. CAHOON, the younger-1 think habit has a good deal to do with a sheep's wanting water. If they have been watered, they want water. So sheep not regularly yarded or housed do not come up well. ALVERSON-Sheep need water in winter the most. They do not drink in summer except when the weather is dry. The discussion finished, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted, after speeches of congratulation and kindly expressions of good will from Messrs. Galusha, Teeples, Moss, Lawrence, Miller, and others, and the convention adjourned sine die: Resolved, That we regard the holding of free courses of lectures and dis cussions in various sections, under the auspices of our Industrial University, as important adjuncts to the usefulness of that institution, and most valuable sources of information for the agriculturists and horticulturists of the State, and trust that the success of the cxperiment may be such as to warrant their adoption as a permanent feature of the institution. Resolved, That we, as practical farmers, are deeply interested in the agricultural development of the State of Illinois, and education of the people in the science of agriculture, and most cordially indorse the general manage ment of the Illinois Industrial University, and pledge to it our cordial and earnest support, believing that the University is a necessity for the promotion and prosperity of industry in our State, and should be sustained by all good citizens. |