re
fences, and putting their sheep on one acre for a few days, and then
removing to another. One hundred sheep may thus be made to manure an
acre of land in ten days, better than any ordinary dressing of other
manure. We should prefer carefully collecting and saving it under cover,
mixed with muck or loam, and apply where and when we choose. Keeping a
suitable number of sheep on a farm is very important in keeping up the
farm. A farm devoted to grain or vegetables, without a suitable number
of animals, usually runs down.

The time when lambs should be allowed to come is important. We much
prefer letting them come when they please, if we have warm quarters, and
can take a little extra care of them. This will give a larger growth,
and furnish large lambs for market, at a season of the year when they
are most desired, and bring the greatest price. For those who will not
take the necessary pains, let them come when the weather has become warm
and grass plenty. Sometimes a ewe loses her lamb, and you wish her to
raise one of another ewe's, that has two. To make a ewe own another's
lamb, take off the skin of her dead lamb, and bind it on to the other
lamb, and she will smell it and own the lamb; after which the skin may
be removed.

Sheep-culture is a subject to which farmers should give increased
attention, until the average weight of sheep in the United States shall
become one third greater than at present, and until there shall be ten
sheep to one of all we have at present.

SHEPHERDIA OR BUFFALO BERRY.

[Illustration]

This is an ornamental shrub, growing from six to fifteen feet high,
bearing a roundish red fruit, much esteemed for preserves. Trees are of
two kinds, male and female, one bearing staminate and the other
pistillate flowers. Hence no fruit can be grown without setting out the
trees in pairs from six to fifteen feet apart. If you set out only two,
and they chance to be of the same kind, you will get no fruit.

SOILS.

The nature and management of soils must be measurably understood by any
one who would be a thorough cultivator. The productive power of a soil
depends much upon the character of the subsoil. A gravelly subsoil is,
on the whole, the best. A thin soil lying on a cold clay subsoil--the
hardpan of the East, and the crowfish clay of the West--however rich it
may be, will be unproductive; while the same soil, on a gravelly
subsoil, would produce abundantly. The best soils, for all purpose