SCOTCH HILL SHEEP. 251 



place will carry must be governed by the minimum supply of 

 food at any one particular season. The latter remark applies to 

 all, but refers specially to grazings which do not have hoggs 

 wintered away. Much might be saved, if farmers would first 

 get to understand the values of the different kinds of plants on 

 the different descriptions of ground ; and secondly, arrange in 

 " hirseling " their sheep, that each division should have its due 

 share of every kind of pasture ; and thirdly, encourage the better 

 growth of the best pastural food plants. Some grown under 

 certain conditions are much eaten by sheep, while under other 

 conditions they seem only to be taken if nothing else can be 

 got. The latter fact is most important, as w^e shall see more 

 fully when we come to speak of the different sorts separately. 



In addition to the considerations as to the natural food, this 

 paper contains results of our experiences with regard to the 

 judicious administration of artificial food to hill sheep at certain 

 seasons. Our observations extend over a period of ten years, but 

 more particularly within the last three years, when we have had 

 a better opportunity of carrying out such experiments on an 

 extensive scale and in a satisfactory manner. 



No lowland pasture can be really first-rate, even on good land, 

 unless it has all through it a sufficient number of good natural 

 grasses of the varieties that come forward to perfection at the 

 different seasons — spring, summer, and autumn — each set giving 

 way as it were in turn to the one which follows. It is the want 

 of good spring-growing grasses that makes a pasture (noted for 

 its summer grazing powers) backward and bare in the early 

 months of the year ; while the sudden failure of others in 

 autumn can be accounted for in the same way. 



This is a matter worth considering in a low country, but as 

 the difficulty can be easily met by supplying artificial foods, it is 

 not of so great importance as in a hill district, where a given 

 amount of stock is desired to be upheld by natural food as much 

 as possible ; and that not only for the three more favourable 

 quarters of the year but for the adverse winter season as well. 

 Hill grazings dilier materially from lowland pastures, in that the 

 soil is not so homogeneous or the plants so thoroughly inter- 

 mingled on the same ground. A patch of one kind of soil is found 

 growing a few varieties of plants in perfection, while others, to 

 wliich the conditions are not suited, are there only as it were on 

 sull'erance. Adjoining this is another description of soil, or it may 

 be the same, but subjected for a long time to a different degree of 

 moisture or some other external inlluence ; the plants here may 

 liave changed places as to relative numbers, or some may have 

 disapi)eared altogether, and others taken their places. Hill land 

 not only presents a most irregular surface, but in this way a 

 very varied appearance, and great dill'ereuce in point of muney 



