THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



475 



T,HE LONDON, OR CENTRAL FARMERS' CLUB. 

 THE REARING AND DISEASES OF LAMBS. 



The usual monthly meeting of the Club took place ou 

 Monday evening, May 3, at the Club House, Blackfriars, 



The subject fur discussion, assigned for introduction 

 to Mr. J. Marshall, of lliseholme, Lincolnshire, was 

 thus stated on the card : — '' The breeding, rearing, and 

 management of lambs, as a successful means of pro- 

 viding against pleuro-pneumonia and consumption.'' 



The chair was taken by Mr. Owen, of Clapton ; and 

 among the other gentlemen present were — Messrs. 

 OwenWallis, J. Tyler, H. Treiliewy, J. A. Williams, 

 E. Little, C. T. James, J. B. Spearing, J. T. Davy, J. 

 Paull, — Paull, junr., Shaw, J. H. Pocock, J. Russell, 

 L. A. Coussm iker, F. Dyball, R. Cobb, J. Cressingham, 

 E. Purser, R. Marsh, C. J. Brickwell, G. S. Harrison, 

 T. Fordham, E. H. Bentall, J. G. King, J. Odams, R. 

 B. Hammond, S. Skelton, Owen, junr., C. Howard, F. 

 Withes, 



The Chairman in introducing the subject character- 

 ized the sheep as the best friend the farmer has. He 

 also spoke to the ability and experience of Mr. Marshall 

 as especially qualifying him to introduce such a question 

 to the members of the Club. 



Mr. Marshall said : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, 

 having been requested by the committee at the annual 

 meeting of this Club to propose a subject for discussion 

 at one of our monthly gatherings, I ventured to do so 

 in the earnest expectation that some member whose ex- 

 perience and opinion as a flock-master might have 

 entitled him to greater consideration would have under- 

 taken the task of explaining the cause, or, perhaps, 

 rather of suggesting a successful means of guarding 

 against pleuro-pneumonia and consumption in the breed- 

 ing, rearing, and management of lambs. I am inclined 

 to approach this most vexatious subject with the greatest 

 diffidence from a knowledge of the many difficulties by 

 which it is at all times unavoidably surrounded. I know 

 of nothing more perplexing, or more productive of 

 anxiety in the mind of a Lincolnshire sheep-breeder, 

 than the ordinary management of his flock, upon a light 

 turnip land farm, during the months of July, August, 

 and September, where it is all arable, or where he has 

 only a small portion of poor weak grass land intermixed ; 

 his reliance for its support being placed entirely on the 

 prospect of a good or bad crop of seeds, as a part and 

 parcel of his usual four-field course of husbandry. I 

 will suppose a farm of 500 acns, containing one-fifth 

 of infi-rior old grass land, and four-fifths of arable dry 

 turnip land, upon which a flock of 400 ewes would, I 

 presume, be kept. One hundred acres of this would, 

 according to the ordinary four-field system, be sown 

 down with seeds, 80 acres for fccdiu'^r, with 20 lbs. 

 per acre of white clover, trefoil, ribgrass, and parsley 

 seeds ; and a very small portion (say about a peck per 

 acre) of any kind of common or dwarf ryegrass, in 



short with any kind of ryegrass rather than Italian — a 

 plant I have been compelled, from sheer necessity, 

 to discontinue growing to any extent, from the fearful 

 destruction it year by year occasions to the succeeding 

 crop of wheat : it is, in fact, on the thin dry soils of 

 Lincolnshire, positive destruction to it ; therefore as a 

 grass for the purposes of alternate husbandry it has 

 been, and I think deservedly so, well nigh altogether 

 exploded; and unless the lands intended for autumn 

 sowing can be ploughed some weeks before putting in 

 the wheat, which should not be deferred beyond the 

 middle of October, no security for a crop after Italian 

 ryegrass can be reasonably calculated upon. The re- 

 maining 20 acres will be sown down with 20 lbs. per 

 aero of red clover or cow-grass, for mowing and making 

 into hay for the cart horses, and subsequent eddish for 

 the lambs afcer they are weaned. Out of a flock of 

 400 ewes, it mostly happens that from loss in lambing, 

 and from other causes incidental to a breeding flock, not 

 more than 350 to 360 return to their pastures with 

 lambs by their sides; and if 100 of these are fortunate 

 enough to rear two lambs each, it is as many as may be 

 reasonably looked for. There will then be 250 single 

 lambs and 100 pairs to be provided for upon 80 acres 

 of feeding seeds, and 100 acres of old grass land of 

 indifferent quality ; 35 acres of the best planted seeds 

 will be stocked with the 100 pairs at the rate of about 

 three ewes and six lambs, or in all nine ewes and lambs 

 per acre. These are allowed half-a-pound to a pound of 

 the best feeding rapecake, or a mixture of two-thirds 

 rape and one-third linseed cake per ewe ; or if 

 preference be given to corn, either a pint of oats, 

 barley, peas, or beans, with a small addition of cut hay, 

 clover, or malt-culm, as circumstances and the growth of 

 the pasture may suggest. The remaining 45 acres of 

 seeds will, if tolerably well planted, carj-y four ewes and 

 single lambs per acre, with or without the foregoing ad- 

 dition of cake or corn, as seasons and the abundance or 

 otherwise of keeping may seem to demand. The remaining 

 70 ewes and lambs will be grazed on 35 acres (at the 

 rate of 2 per acre) of the old grass land ; 50 acres of 

 which will also carry (at the rate of 3 per acre) 150 of 

 the best she-hoggetts, kept back for the purpose of re- 

 storing the breeding flock to its original number at 

 Michaelmas. The remaining 15 acres are put into mea- 

 dow for hay. The whole of the flock are regularly sup- 

 plied with water, and if they have no pond or running 

 stream to avail themselves of, they must be provided 

 with watcr-trouglis set about the fields for that purpose, 

 and these shouli never on any account be permitted to 

 be quite empty. I believe, in hot weather, sheep well 

 supplied with water require a great deal less food, and 

 arc more comfortable and healthy, than in those locali- 

 ties where this desirable luxury is beyond their reach. 



