Mr. Editor, - I observe in your paper of the 23d January, a communication from a brother shepherd, with the initials of A. L. H. on the subject of a disorder which affects his flock, the cause of which he is unable to ascertain. I can most sincerely sympathise with him in his misfortunes, and wish it was in my power to assign the cause with certainty. Were it not for the circumstance, as mentioned by him, that the sheep have died. When away from the barn, there would be little doubt in my mind, that the malady is occasioned by feeding altogether too much on dry food, hay. Unless his farm produces some plant poisonous to the animal, I suspect it is dry fodder that has produced the mischief, and that when once disordered, if the sheep live through the winter, the effect is not recovered from, and they continue to droop and die through the season of grass feed, as has been the case in other instances.

It is very desirable, if as he fears, his sheep die this winter, that the viscera of the abdomen be examined by some person capable of marking the difference, between a healthy and disordered state of the contents of the belly. My conjecture being right he will find the third stomach, or manifolds, the seat of difficulty. Having more than fifty sheep to die last winter with symptoms not very dissimilar to those described by him, I opened more than a dozen, and the uniform appearances in their stomach, were some slight degree of inflammation in the coats, which were also, as well as the folds, within ,in a dry and hardened state; in most instances, so much so, that secretion had entirely ceased. The food, with which the stomach was filled,, was also so dry, as to be taken out with the figures, and strewed about like moist saw dust. The malady which affected my sheep, was very general through the State of Maine, and some other parts of New England. There is no doubt with me, from facts collected, and my observations, that the disorder was occasioned by the quality of the hay, grown and cut in a very wet season. It afforded by little nutriment, and perhaps possessed positively injurious qualities. Leaving the question, what is the cause of the disorder in the flock. Of A. L. H. undetermined until he has an opportunity to examine his dead sheep. I will venture to say that the principal cause of the death of sheep in winter is owing to dry food. It is well known to almost every sheep owner, that he loses but few sheep by grass, compared with those which die in winter. M. Daubenton, a celebrated French agriculturist, is sanguine, that the mortality which more or less prevails among sheep in winter in France, where they are not under the necessity of feeding half so long perhaps, as we do here, is caused by dry food. He examined a great number after death, and describes appearances of the third stomach as similar to those above stated.

In order to insure the health of a flock in winter, they should be fed more or less with roots,.rutabaga, sugar beet, or mangel wurtzel. They can be grown as cheap as hay, and when freely given to animals, keep the digestive organs in as healthy a state as grass. My rutabaga, last year cost me 4 1-10 cents per bushel in the cellar, although the season was a bad one for their growth, and I got not more than two thirds of a crop. I do not know, however, that they can be cultivated so cheap else, as this "cold climate and sterile soil," as a late Honorable Senator was pleased to call the climate and soil of his state on the floor of Congress. For I saw it published not long since, that a farmer in New England had received a gratuity from an agricultural society, for a crop which cost him twelve or fourteen cents the bushel. So far as one winter’s experience enables me to judge, I am satisfied that fifty bushels of roots and one ton of hay, are of as much value for feeding sheep as two tons of hay.

I conclude with the request, that Mr. A. L. H. will have his sheep, which may die, examined, the appearances carefully noted, and made public through the columns of your New England Farmer.

Anson, Somerset Co. Me. Feb. 1, 1830

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