SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 65 



nessed the reluctance and evident pain with which the parent ewe 

 submits to be attacked by sometimes two lambs, apparently as big 

 as the di m, one upon each side, without feeling that her physical 

 powers are somewhat overtaxed. On all good farms the flock mas- 

 ter carefully separates the lambs from their dams as early as Au- 

 gust. Nor is this enough, for if the bucks are suffered to run with 

 them, as soon as the flow of milk stops, they will commence a new 

 gestation, whereas, if during the four months, when, on the whole, 

 the feed is the richest, the ewes are exempted from the exhaustive 

 duties of maternity, they can accumulate fat, and gain length, 

 compactness and softness of fleece, by which they can live through 

 the winter on comparatively little fodder, and better withstand the 

 cold. The too common practice is to leave both lambs and rams 

 with the ewes, whereby they come to the barn early and poor, and 

 craving large supplies of fodder, and then the yeaning begins on 

 some cold night in January, when the mercury stands 20° below 

 zero, and the farmer is lucky if half his lambs do not die. The 

 feeder sees his hay waste fister than he calculated, and his sheep 

 exhibiting in the tattered locks about their necks, and in the jut- 

 ting out through their wool of the hip bones, that they have been 

 overtaxed, and is obliged to resort to provender to winter them 

 out. Let the farmer carefully adopt the other method, and in the 

 first place he need not begin foddering so early, nor continue it so 

 late, and in midwinter, when the ground is bare, he need not 

 trouble himself if his sheep do not come up every night to the pen. 

 He may also dispense with provender, and his lambs coming in 

 the pastures in May will be better and stronger, and his losses not 

 one-fourth of what they would be in January and February. There 

 will scarce be a perceptible difference, in October, in the size of 

 the lambs that came in May, and those that came in February. 

 Mr. Jonas Webb, a famous English breeder, of South Downs, 

 speaking of late yeaning, lays down this maxim : "In general way 

 the later they lamb, the more they twin." 



The great thing, is to lessen, as much as possible, the expense 

 of wintering. I think 25 per cent, may be saved by weaning the 

 lambs, and bringing on the yeaning season in the month of May. 

 Many have, doubtless, endeavored to keep their sheep out late in 

 the fall, but have found that it did not pay. After the season when 

 snow storms are likely to occur, the flock must be within reach. 

 They are gotten up from the remote pasture and suffered to run in 

 5 



