THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



333 



sweet spirits of nitre. When the action of the stomach 

 shall have been stopped by the curding or coagulation of 

 milk, an alkali should be employed to dissolve the co- 

 agulum. The best to be so used is magnesia. Painful 

 heaving of the body indicates the cause of disease. With 

 respect to coslivenesii, half ounce doses of Epsom salts 

 repeated every six hours until relief is afforded, and 

 removal to a more succulent pasture, are the proper 

 remedies. Epsom salts will, too, generally relieveyefer 

 in lambs at its commencement. This malady is indi- 

 cated by quick breathing. 



Medicine can only be resorted to in individual cases. 

 Where a malady prevails throughout a flock, it is best 

 generally to meet it by judicious dieting. 



The ewes must be kept in a thriving condition, that 

 is, progressing all summer, and on the 20th of July or 

 thereabouts, the lambs should be removed to a good 

 clover eddish, at a sufficient distance from their mothers 

 to prevent the one lot hearing the bleating of the other. 

 I say that the lambs should be removed ; but it will be 

 better to say that the ewes should be removed, leaving 

 the lambs where they were, for a day or two before the 

 change is made. So that if they are to go upon clover 

 eddish, it would be well for ewes and lambs to go there 

 together for a day or two before the separation takes 

 place. Experience will show that too much attention 

 cannot be paid to such apparently trifling matters. It 

 is in assiduous attention to such trifling circumstances 

 that a farmer's profit consists. 



I must not forget to state that when the ewes are 

 shorn, the lambs should be dipped in a composition of 

 arsenic : easily pre pared by boiling soft-soap, arsenic, 

 and sulphur together. 



This is done that the " ticks " they possess may 



be killed ; for being the only harbours for them now 

 their mothers have lost their wool, the lambs would be 

 so irritated as to render all improvement impossible. 



In conclusion, to be really successful as a breeder of 

 sheep, the farmer must not be satisfied with a know- 

 ledge of his flock in the aggregate, but he must be inti- 

 mate with the members of that flock individually, and 

 their antecedents. This can only be obtained by going 

 down thoroughly and personally into the practical de- 

 tails, as very few breeders care to do. None know the 

 trouble, care, pleasure, and profit of such a course, but 

 such as practise it. Not a day should go by, without 

 the farmer passing in review every sheep beneath his 

 eye ; and at least once a fortnight tliey should all come 

 beneath his hand, as the touch is the best test of condition 

 and comparative improvement that can be employed. 

 Such constant attention will give a power of discernment 

 to be obtained in no other way ; and it is the possession 

 of i,his power alone which constitutes the profit of the 

 flock ; for the unobservant and careless master will only 

 discover a malady when it has gone too far to be reme- 

 died, while the observant master will detect by a species 

 of anticipation, and prevent rather than attempt to cure. 

 To this homily I will append a remark made by that in- 

 defatigable general, the late Sir Charles Napier, when at 

 Cephalonia, and leave my readers to draw their own de- 

 ductions therefrom : — '* How entirely all things depend 

 on the mode of executing them ! How ridiculous mere 

 theories are ! My successor thought, as half the world 

 always thinks, that a man in command has only to order, 

 and obedience will follow. Hence they are baffled not 

 from want of talent, but from inactivity ; vainly think- 

 ing that while they spare themselves, everyone under 

 them will work like horses." Eum^us. 



WINTER FOOD FOR CATTLE. 



Sir, — The importance of winter food for either 

 horses, neat cattle, or sheep, is so generally acknowledged, 

 that there can be no need for any apology in offering a 

 few hints as to the likeliest methods of getting up a 

 supply. The turnip, the carrot, and the beet, formerly 

 garden stuff, have all been long ago pressed into the 

 service of agriculture : even the tender exotics have 

 been forcibly taken possession of, and the cucumber 

 family itself has been taxed to feed the cows, in the 

 shape of gourds, &c. After such examples as these, let 

 no one be surprised at any botanical extravagance that 

 may hereafter be perpetrated. 



The gourd, beet, carrot, and turnip require delicate 

 handling and a fine tilth, besides skill and capital, and 

 necessarily imply a considerable advance in shelter, 

 drainage, levelling, &c ; but there are situations of 

 mountain, moor, morass, crag, cliff, &c., where cul- 

 tivation of the above-named herbaceous plants is entirely 

 out of the question ; and as there are some thousands of 

 acres of waste that receive rain and sunshine in Eng- 

 land, and yet produce little return, it is time to try if 

 these unprofitable servants could not be set to work. 

 Most farms have some waste lands, and the following 

 experiments might be tried on a small scale on these 

 smaller wastes first, before attempting them on a larger 

 scale. To propose anything tender as a tenant of the 

 waste would be quite out of the question, therefore I 

 shall proceed at once to lay before the readers of the 

 Mark-Lane Express my reasons for suggesting the 

 adoption of shrubs instead of herbaceous plants into 

 the agricultural service. 



There is a limit set by Nature to the culture of hardy 

 plants, viz., the line of perpetual snow ; and if we wish 



to know what tenants would suit our waste lands, bleak 

 and dreary as they may be, we should consult the plants 

 that have skirted the line of perpetual snow, and we 

 shall find them ready to volunteer into a better country, 

 and as we have no place so bad as the place they have 

 left, it will be seen that they are decidedly bettering their 

 condition, and thus all danger of growing them is at an 

 end. I need not enumerate the plants that do not con- 

 cern the farmer, for the lichens and other cryptogamous 

 plants are not to be cultivated by any ordinary tillage, 

 but the birch and the willow have their representatives 

 in the high hill-tops bordering the boundary line where 

 all vegetable life is wanting ; it is to families like these, 

 then, that we must look for the support we so much 

 want of winter fodder. The tops of the heather may 

 give a bite of green food for the " Inll wether" to keep 

 in life till the return of spring, but the plant is not 

 adapted for a better place, and its rate of growth will 

 for ever fix it to the mountain. It is far otherwise with 

 the willow family. " Growing like a willow" is an idiom 

 of our language ; and when we see shoots of this tree 

 (for it has both shrubs and trees) six feet long in one 

 season, we cannot fail to appreciate the willow as a 

 valuable fodder plant as far as bulk is concerned. 



Some years ago I bought a goat and a kid, to try 

 how many species of trees produced leaves and twigs 

 that the goat would eat. Suffice it to state, here, that she 

 atethewillowgreedily; and when 1 was showingtheexperi- 

 ment to an English nobleman who had travelled a great 

 deal in the North of Europe, he told me that he had 

 seen hay made of willow, and that it made good winter 

 food. The willow has a great spread of foliage, and the 

 amount of cellular tissue in the leaves and bark bears a 



