do well. Salt furnishes the chlorin required for the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice, and has also other important functions in the digestion of food (p. 24).

Hot-house Lambs.-The most extreme method of fattening sheep is that of producing so-called hot-house lambs (Fig. 90). The term "hot-house" applies to lambs born in the late fall or early winter, which are fattened during the winter months and marketed in the early spring. The quarters in which the lambs are fed are not artificially heated, the name having reference to the fact that the lambs are produced under artificial conditions for a market willing to pay a very high price for a fancy article, in a similar way

as in the case of ordinary hot-house products. The lambs must be in fat condition to sell as hot-house lambs. Dorsets or Dorset grades are best suited for production of such lambs, as the ewes will breed earlier than the usual time, viz., during the early summer, and the lambs will be dropped during October and November. The mother's milk is the best feed available, and ewes must be fed liberally on milk-producing feeds so as to give a maximum flow of milk. The ewes' milk is supplemented by grain feeds as the lambs grow older. The following grain mixtures were found to give good results in trials with hot-house lambs at Cornell station:8

Bulletin 309, which see for description of the method of management of a hot-house lamb producing flock throughout the year; also Ottawa Dept. Agr., Pamphlet 11, 1915; Ohio Bul. 270; Breeders' Gaz. 1916, p. 312, and 1917, p. 316.

(1) 50 pounds corn meal, 50 pounds wheat middlings, and 5 pounds oil meal,

(2) 25 pounds wheat bran, 25 pounds wheat middlings, 25 pounds hominy meal, 8 pounds linseed meal.

The lambs are fed grain in a separate pen (creep), as previously explained. Rightly handled, hot-house lambs will make a sufficiently rapid growth to be ready for the market in ten to twelve weeks from birth. They will gain at least one-half pound each daily during this period, and will reach a weight of about 50 pounds at slaughtering time. These lambs are generally marketed before March, as the prices in the East, where they are mostly produced, as a rule go down after this time.

Early Spring Lambs.-Fattening early spring lambs has become an important industry in the South. By the use of Bermuda grass, bur clover, and Japan clover, permanent pasture may be available in this section ten months of the year, and temporary winter pasture may be resorted to the remaining two months, thus giving both ewes and lambs the advantage of pasturage during practically the entire year; the lambs may be fed grain separately and marketed during April to June, when good prices prevail. In many cases the ewes are fed nothing but cotton-seed meal and cotton-seed hulls, the daily feed being .5 pound meal and 1.3 pounds hulls; another cheap southern feed is soybean hay.

Fall Lambs.-Fattening lambs are often carried until fall on pasturage, with a slight feed of grain, say one-half pound per head daily, and are sold at about eight months old, when they will weigh in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. Rape sown in the corn or on ground set apart especially for this crop will furnish excellent supplemental feed for such lambs, as well as for fattening sheep in general. If rape is grown by itself, it is either sown broadcast or in drills 30 inches apart, the advantage of the latter method being that a larger yield of green forage will be secured, and that the field can be kept free from weeds (p. 138). Movable hurdles are generally used where rape is pastured off by sheep or swine."

Winter Lambs.-Another method is to fatten the lambs during the winter season. This is the common method practised in regions where lambs are fattened for market. In the East the lambs are generally kept in rectangular feeding pens with hay racks and grain troughs provided with vertical slats, making an opening for each lamb. They are put on full feed in about three weeks and

• Alabama Bulletin 148; Missouri Circular 25; Tennessee Bulletin 84. Pa Nebraska Bul. 170.

fed grain until in the right condition for market. Water and salt are supplied in each pen.

In the corn belt the common method is to feed the lambs an abundance of good hay and to bring them slowly on to full grain ration, beginning with one-fourth pound per head daily and gradu

ally increasing this to one pound per head daily in about three weeks, after which time they get all the grain they will clean up at each feeding; less hay is eaten as the lambs get on full grain feed. Lambs thus fed should make a gain of 25 to 30 pounds in 100 days, when they will be ready for market. There is considerable variation in the choice of grain mixtures and other feeds. Corn

with wheat bran, oats, or linseed meal fed in varying proportions, according to the character of the available roughage and the market prices of the feeds, makes up the majority of the rations fed; other feeds are cotton-seed meal, soybeans, peas, and, of rough feeds, roots or silage, alfalfa or clover hay, corn fodder, etc. The lambs are often fattened in two droves in the corn belt, the first one being purchased in November and fed until the end of January, when the second lot is purchased and fattened by the first of May.

In the western States extensive lamb and sheep feeding operations are carried on each year (Figs. 91, 92, 93, 94). The sheep are usually separated into flocks of about 500 each and fed in lots

arranged in rows with feeding lanes between. No shelter is provided except what may be furnished by a hay or straw stack. The sheep are brought from the high summer ranges to these feeding points where alfalfa hay is available, and are fed all the hay they will eat until they are shipped. If grain is fed, they are given three-fourths to one pound daily per head, generally Indian corn, or barley or wheat in the far western States. Experiments at the New Mexico station1' show that by an addition of corn to alfalfa hay an improved quality of mutton was obtained and the feeding period was shortened. The general conclusion drawn is that, with alfalfa alone, 11 it requires about 110 to 120 days to fit the lambs for the local market; with light grain ration (one-fourth pound per head per day), 100 to 110 days; with medium grain ration (one-half pound), 90 to 100 days, and with heavy grain ration (1 pound), 70 to 80 days. The gains were as great (but not as rapid) with one-fourth pound of corn per head daily as with onehalf pound. The cost of the gain increased, however, with an increase in the grain ration. Other prominent feeds used for fattening sheep in the West besides alfalfa are beet pulp and field peas (pp. 121 and 194).

Western sheep men calculate that the wool pays the cost of the sheep feeding, and the mutton and lambs represent the profit of the

Fig. 94.—Winter scene of range sheep in the Nevada mountains. (Doten.)

business. Large numbers of wethers are shipped East every year from these States, especially to Chicago, and either go directly on the market, if sufficiently fat, or are fed at some feeding station near the market until they are in prime condition or can be disposed of to good advantage. While at these stations they are fed hay, corn, and, generally, grain screenings, at least in past years.

Value of Various Grain Feeds for Fattening Lambs.—The following table shows the results of a large number of trials with various grains for fattening lambs, which will be of interest in this connection. In the last column of the table the number of feed units required per 100 pounds gain are given, assuming 212 pounds