State of Europe. Sheep on Worn-out Lands.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1897, 3 November 1886, Page 2

State of Europe.

Sheep on Worn-out Lands.

Apprehensions of war in Europe are still abroad. It is asserted that Turkey and the Powers generally distrust England. The London Times deplares the deadlock that has occurred, and urges that the longer the solution of the difficulty is delayed the more diffi* cult it will be to affect a satisfactory settlement. It declares that the extensive prepara, lions for war that are being made by Russia are ominous of a revolve to fight. Taking all the circumstances into account the Times says that the peace of Europe is simply at the mercy of an accident which General Kaulbars is apparently endeavouring to hasten toward. Turkey is massing troops at Adriauople as earnestly as if war bad begun.

Sheep eat a much larger number of plants acid wild herbs than will cattle or horses, and for this reason the sheep may thrive where the cow or the horse might grow poor, or even starve, and we are inclined to look t > this fact in part for an explanation of the superiority of the sheep as a soil renovator. An old bushy pasture will often give sheep a pretty good living, and the constant browsing of the i coarse herbage inclines to keep it down and give the little grass there may bo a better chauce to thrive. Briers and many other weeds, both annual and perennial, are easily destroyed by close cropping while grass under the same treatment may spread and improve, and especially so when the manure made from the cor sumption of the weeds is distributed where it will do the gross the greatest possible good. Obemistshave found that a ton of hay or a bushel of corn are worth for manure about the same, whether consumed by one animal or another. Poultry manure is more valuable than cow manure, not wholly because poultry oaa convert a bushel of corn into better manure than a cow can, but because poultry are usually fed upon richer food than cows are given. Though sheep may gradually improve neglected lalldS b* converting the coarse herbage into fertilizing material iur a ‘ortif? plants, yet to improve such lands rapidly, grain should be led both for the improvement of the land and |to increase the profits from the sheep themselves. As a rule there is no profit in keeping any animal poor; and to keep sh* ep solely forthe improvement of pastures, when a double profit might be obtained by feeding, would be folly indeed.—New Englend Parmer,