YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 83 



the way up to $15 per head. The lambs are dropped about 

 March, and when they are ready to wean after harvest, are put 

 out upon the stubbles to eat the " seeds" that were sown in the 

 spring, and at night perhaps folded upon a turnip field as soon 

 as the latter is ready. But Mr. 0. keeps a great many sheep 

 out a-boarding, as we might express it ; that is, there are many 

 smaller farmers, who do not have the means of keeping a large 

 flock the year round, and who are glad to take in those of their 

 neighbors both upon their stubbles and to eat their turnips. 

 For the lambs thus sent out upon stubbles on other farms, 

 about 3 cents a head per week is paid. The price paid for tur 

 nip land is in the neighborhood of 6 cents a week for each head, 

 though it varies with the character of the crop, &c. ; when it 

 does not exceed this price, Mr. C. considers that there is room 

 for profit to the owner of the sheep. Sometimes he has flocks at 

 a distance of 50 miles or even more, and a great advantage of 

 this method to the small farmer, arises from the fact, that while 

 the few sheep he would want to keep might be all winter 

 in eating his turnips off, if 500 or 600 come upon his fields 

 at once, they are all cleared by Christmas and ready for plow 

 ing. 



In a train on the way into Lincolnshire Mr. Tucker met a 

 farmer of that county who had sheared, the preceding spring, 

 1,200 sheep, a large number for a farm of eight hundred and 

 fifty acres. He had mentioned also the practice which some 

 of us have advocated and others decried so strongly that of 

 spreading the manure upon the wheat-lands some time before 

 plowing up the stubble of the clover crop, and permitting it to re 

 main in exposure ; a method of which he was strongly in favor, 

 and which has been long and successfully practised by John 

 Johnston and others in this country. 



The next visit spoken of was at Aylesby, also in Lincolnshire, 

 the residence of Mr. Torr, a noted Shorthorn breeder, and ex 

 tensive farmer. He cultivates about 2,100 acres, mostly of 

 " fen" land, although not of that lower kind requiring drainage 



