SHEEP BARNS OR STABLES. 215 



tively, for each. And, finally, the farmer was not so apt, 

 under such circumstances, to see all his sheep daily with his 

 own eyes ; nor was either he or his shepherd half so prone to 

 turn out in the night to take care of the sheep or the lambs, 

 provided a change of weather, the rising of a gale, or any 

 other circumstance rendered it expedient.* 



It is now usual to construct the sheep, like the horse and 

 cow barns, near the farm-house. When the farm flock does 

 not exceed about three hundred, it is often wintered in a 

 single barn which has separate apartments, holding from 

 seventy-five to one hundred sheep each ; and each apartment 

 has a separate outside yard. The upper story of these barns 

 is devoted to hay for the sheep : the under one is eight feet 

 high, and floored on the bottom if it is necessary to insure 

 perfect dryness. 



It is common to take advantage of a slope in the ground, 

 and by means of a small amount of excavation, so to place the 

 sheep barn that while the doors of the basement story open on 

 a lower level, those of the second story open upon a higher 

 level, or on the surface of an ascent, on the opposite side so 

 that hay can be drawn on wagons into the upper story. This 

 is something of a convenience, and was a great one before the 

 invention of the horse pitch-fork. The side of the lower story 

 which supports the bank of earth resting against it, is generally 

 composed of stone -wall this being necessary both for 

 strength and durability. In various states of the atmosphere 

 this wall exudes moisture, or, as it is termed, "sweats," 

 diffusing dampness through the apartment. Unless that 

 apartment is far higher, more spacious and better ventilated 

 than would otherwise be necessary, this dampness is unques- 

 tionably prejudicial to the health of sheep. The better course 

 would be, where such a barn is thought desirable, to build it 

 entirely independent of the bank-wall and connect them with 

 a short bridge. 



The usual way of dividing the lower story of the sheep 

 barn into apartments for different parcels of sheep, is simply 



* For example, I remember some twenty or twenty-five years since to have 

 had several hundred ewes with young lambs left out on a warm and'beautiful night 

 in early May, in four adjoining fields. A little after midnight I was wakened by the 

 first howl of a north-easter, which was accompanied by a blinding snow-storm. 

 This was a case to say come instead of go. In fifteen minutes three of us, with our 

 lanterns, had started for the fields about half a mile off: and we worked on until 9 

 o'clock the next morning in getting in the sheep, and half frozen lambs, and in resus- 

 citating the latter. We probably saved a hundred lambs which would have perished 

 before morning, Had these sheep been out in the same number of parcels half a mile 

 from each other some of them a mile and a half from my house what chance 

 would there have been to save the great body of the younger lambs ? 



