--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, Joseph M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 24 number: 2 published: 1920-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Tanner, Joseph M., "Thoughts of a Farmer," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 2 (December 1920): 122.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2402unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2402unse start_page: 122 end_page: 122 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2402unse publication_year: 1920 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1920, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Thoughts of a Farmer Thoughts of a Farmer By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner The lambing season is always an important one with tLe shepherd. It requires unusual care and trict attention to bus- iness. The best of judgment is always exercised, and even then the losses are likely to be considerable. A common practice is to keep the ewes with lambs separated as much as possible for a period of ten days, until the ewes can recognize the lambs by their bleat. At first, they are recognized through the sense of smell. On my sheep ranch in Canada, I have a special field where I collect my ewes and lambs when the lambs are about seven or eight days old. Here I can handle as many as two hundred ewes with their lambs. We find it very helpful and very profitable to feed the ewes oats during the lambing period. These oats are put in small troughs, and the sheep are then turned out of the enclosure. They rush for the oats and eat them very rapidly and afterwards chew them, as we say, "chew their cud." The ewe, therefore, that does not get to the trough early, or that leaves it for any reason, not only deprives herself of valuable food, but stunts her lamb through insufficient milk. Sometimes the lambs will frolic about, and the ewes leave their feed to run after them. It is necessary, therefore, to see that the lambs are kept close to the mother and near the trough. Sometimes they break loose and run away, and there are always some members who will leave their feed and follow the lambs. Again, there are ewes that stay by the trough till the last kernel is eaten. As was usual with me, I took a man over to this small field to assist me in rounding up the lambs and keeping them near their mothers. One morning one of the lambs broke away and ran a considerable distance. The ewe left her food and started wildly after her lamb. My assistant became excited and was angry, remarking, "You are a good mother, but an old fool." It would be highly unbecoming to make a comparison be- tween a human mother and a ewe mother, but the thought comes to one's mind, in wondering whether there are not many human mothers who unconsciously do their children wrong by over- indulgence and by following momentary impulses that belong more to animal than to human life. Do we lead our children, or run after them? Do we keep them near us, or do we allow them to draw us away from what is an important duty in life? Yielding to these momentary impulses and the desire to be constantly in pursuit of our children, really violates the law of discipline and the saner requirements of life. It is easy for us to become impulsive, and thereby irrational, unwise, and un- fitted to exercise proper discipline over our children.