GYMNASTICS FOR SHEEP.
Mr. Randall, in Moore's Rural New-Yorker,
for Jan. 30, makes some sensible remarks about
exercise for sheep. "The deep snow prevents
their moving about much ; they are not pinched
by cold;" they eat heartily and appear thrifty,
but "this thrift may become more apparent than
real. Want of exercise, though it promotes fattening, is not conducive to health. We know
an admirable sheep farmer who daily drives his
sheep around his range of barns, until they have
traveled at least half a mile. A broad path is
made through the snow for them."

Boys and girls who are kept closely confined
in school without much exercise, grow up pale
and puny and narrow chested. The sallowness
of students becomes proverbial. Study and feeble health are supposed to go hand in hand.
Teachers, clerks, printers, editors, ministers are
constantly failing in health when they ought to
be in the prime of life. To prevent this state of
things, lectures are given, books written. Newspapers abound in articles upon the subject  and
Lo! gymnasiums spring up all over the land.
Walking, running, lifting, rowing, base-ball,
heavy apparatus and light apparatus, all have
their advocates. Now, every one believes that

he is much benefited who makes a judicious use
of the gymnasium.

Mr. Bonner well knows that Dexter should try
his muscles every day, else he could not make
his half mile in 1-4. And now the same principle is applied to sheep and with equal force it
may be applied to every domestic animal. If
turned into an open yard and left to themselves,
they have too much of human nature in them to
stir around much unless they have some object
in view.

Will not the coming man (H. W. Beecher says
he will most likely come on a Velocipede) have a
regular daily drill for his domestic animals. Perhaps it will yet be a part of the boy's winter chores
to see that the pigs, cows and sheep have walked
their half mile or two miles a day, or have been
a certain number of times up and down and
around the straw stack. It probably seems a
little visionary to say, the pig can't have his
breakfast until he has jumped a certain number
of times over a high bar. He must walk a log,
roll over, stand on his hind feet, first one then
the other, and now on his fore feet with hind legs
elevated high in air. He must stretch and curl
up and take a long run at double quick. He
must try deep breathing and vocal gymnastics
(which some of them actually now do) before he
he is in a fit condition to eat his allowance.
Old brindle must be daily put through a certain amount of kicking (this is not visionary always) and pawing. She must sit down, stand on
her head, carry heavy weights, go through with
many evolutions and convolutions of horns and
caudal appendage. Who knows but the coming
man will have a complicated apparatus for improving the health and strength of sheep. Perhaps a well designed gymnasium will be considered a necessary addition to every sheep shed.
W. J. B.