302 KEPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 



given them from the 1st of January to the end of April, they 

 may be expected at the latter date to weigh about nineteen 

 pounds per quarter, and to yield a fleece of eight and a-half 

 pounds. The above figures are quoted on the authority of an 

 eminent sheep feeder, who, throughout a lengthened experience, 

 has been most minute and exact in his observations. To produce 

 such results, however, great care and attention must be spent 

 upon them ; and, in fact, unless this is done, sheep feeding on 

 turnips can never be highly suecessful. 



The greater number of the half-bred (Leicester and Cheviot) 

 lambs that are fed in the county are from the hill stocks, and 

 they are of a less size, and consume a smaller weight of turnips, 

 than the heavy ones of which we have just been speaking. 

 Twenty to twenty-four pounds per day is the quantity usually 

 consumed by this class of stock when no grain is given. It is 

 customary to give them about two imperial bushels of oats each 

 in the course of the winter. They usually get the oats for the 

 first time about the 1st of January, and from one-half to three- 

 quarters of a pound per day is an ordinary allowance for each 

 sheep. 



Eeference has been made in a previous section to the prizes 

 which have long been given for the best turnip-fed sheep, at 

 the annual show under the auspices of the Lockerbie Farmers' 

 Club. We append an abstract of the table of the weights of the 

 prize sheep for the last twenty-two years. It will be observed 

 that the competitions embraced two classes of sheep, the one being 

 one-year-old half-bred hogs, and the others one-year-old Cheviot 

 wedder hogs. The show is held about the middle of April. 



(1.) One-year-old Half-bred Hogs. — Average weight of heaviest 

 20 sheep for twenty-two years, 163 lbs. ; average weight of 

 heaviest 20 sheep in one year (1865), 180 lbs. ; average of 

 heaviest single sheep for twenty- two years, 186 § lbs. ; heaviest 

 single sheep ever exhibited (1862), 215 lbs. 



(2.) One-year-old Cheviot Wedder Hogs. — Average weight of 

 heaviest 20 sheep for twenty -two years, 114 lbs.; average of 

 heaviest 20 sheep in one year (1855), 131 lbs. ; average of 

 heaviest single sheep for twenty-two years, 132 lbs. ; heaviest 

 single sheep ever exhibited (1855), 155 lbs. 



Section VI. — Grass Lands. Clover and Artificial and other 

 Masses under Rotation. 



We come now to treat of the management of such pasture 

 land as is under regular rotation. There were, as we have seen, 

 50,449 acres of the county under this kind of pasture in 1866. 

 As explained under the section on corn crops, grass seeds are 

 always sown with the grain after green cropping. In the 



