Agriculture for Beginners Part 27

Sheep are docile and easily handled, and they live on a greater diversity of food and require less grain than any other kind of live stock. In mixed farming there is enough food wasted on most farms to maintain a small flock of sheep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 253. SHEEP HAVE LONG BEEN CALLED THE GOLDEN-HOOFED ANIMALS]

Sheep may be divided into three cla.s.ses:

I. _Fine-Wooled Breeds_

1. American Merino.

2. Delaine Merino.

3. Rambouillets.

4. Hampshire Down.

5. Oxford Down.

6. Cheviot.

II. _Medium-Wooled Breeds_

1. Southdown.

2. Shropshire.

3. Horned Dorset.

III. _Long-Wooled Breeds_

1. Leicester.

2. Lincoln.

3. Cotswold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 254. IN THE PASTURE]

The first group is grown princ.i.p.ally for wool, and mutton is secondary; in the second group, mutton comes first and wool second; in the third group both are important considerations. Wool is nature's protection for the sheep. Have you ever opened the fleece and observed the clean skin in which the fibers grow? These fibers, or hairs, are so roughened that they push all dirt away from the skin toward the outside of the fleece.

Wool is valuable in proportion to the length and evenness of the fiber and the density of the fleece.

EXERCISE

1. How many pounds ought a fleece of wool to weigh?

2. Which makes the better clothing, coa.r.s.e or fine wool?

3. Why are sheep washed before being sheared?

4. Does cold weather trouble sheep? wet weather?

SECTION LVI. SWINE

The wild boar is a native of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The wild hogs are the parents from which all our domestic breeds have sprung. In many parts of the world the wild boar is still found. These animals are active and powerful, and as they grow older are fierce and dangerous. In their wild state they seek moist, sandy, and well-wooded places, close to streams of water. Their favorite foods are fruits, gra.s.s, and roots, but when pressed by hunger they will eat snakes, worms, and even higher animals, like birds, fowls, and fish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 255. WHICH WILL YOU RAISE?]

Man captured some of these wild animals, fed them abundant and nutritious food, accustomed them to domestic life, selected the best of them to raise from, and in the course of generations developed our present breeds of hogs. The main changes brought about in hogs were these: the legs became shorter, the snout and neck likewise shortened, the shoulders and hams increased their power to take on flesh, and the frame was strengthened to carry the added burden of flesh. As the animal grew heavier it roamed less widely, and as it grew accustomed to man its temper became less fierce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 256. A PAIR OF PORKERS]

Meat can be more cheaply obtained from hogs than from any other animal.

When a hog is properly fed and cared for it will make the farmer more money in proportion to cost than any other animal on the farm.

The most profitable type of hog has short legs, small bones, straight back and under line, heavy hams, small well-dished head, and heavy shoulders. The scrub and "razorback" hogs are very unprofitable, and require an undue amount of food to produce a pound of gain. It requires two years to get the scrub to weigh what a well-bred pig will weigh when nine months old. Scrub hogs can be quickly changed in form and type by the use of a pure-bred sire.

A boy whose parents were too poor to send him to college once decided to make his own money and get an education. He bought a sow and began to raise pigs. He earned the food for the mother and her pigs. His hogs increased so rapidly that he had to work hard to keep them in food. By saving the money he received from the sale of his hogs he had enough to keep him two years in college. Suppose you try his plan, and let the hog show you how fast it can make money.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 257. A GOOD TYPE]

We have several breeds of swine. The important ones are:

I. _Large Breeds_

1. Chester White.

2. Improved Yorkshire.

3. Tamworth.

II. _Medium Breeds_

1. Berkshire.

2. Poland-China.

3. Duroc-Jersey.

4. Cheshire.

III. _Small Breeds_

1. Victoria.

2. Suffolk.

3. Ess.e.x.

4. Small Yorkshire.

Hogs will be most successfully raised when kept as little as possible in pens. They like the fields and the pasture gra.s.s, the open air and the sunshine. Almost any kind of food can be given them. Unlike other stock, they will devour greedily and tirelessly the richest feeding-stuffs.

The most desirable hog to raise is one that will produce a more or less even mixture of fat and lean. Where only corn is fed, the body becomes very fat and is not so desirable for food as when middlings, tankage, cowpeas, or soy beans are added as a part of the ration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 258. DINNER IS OVER]

When hogs are kept in pens, cleanliness is most important, for only by cleanliness can disease be avoided.

SECTION LVII. FARM POULTRY

Our geese, ducks, turkeys, and domestic hens are all descendants of wild fowls, and are more or less similar to them in appearance.

The earliest recorded uses of fowls were for food, for fighting, and for sacrifice. To-day the domestic fowl has four well-defined uses--egg-production, meat-production, feather-production, and pest-destruction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STANDARD-BRED FOWLS Barred Plymouth Rocks, male and female; White Wyandottes, female and male]