Ch. XXXIX.] ON SHEEP FEEDING. 463 



good crops of clover and sainfoin, or upon spring tares, or any succulent 

 green crop that will afford abundant nourishment to promote their growth, 

 which should now be attended to without regard to expense ; for, if it be 

 at this time checked, it cannot afterwards be easily recovered. It may, in- 

 deed, be assumed as an axiom, that no animal will pay the breeder if starved 

 while young. They should, therefore, be watched with care ; and the 

 ground should be occasionally shifted, so as to supply ihem with a fresh 

 bite, until the herbage begins to fail, when they should be immediately put 

 during the whole winter upon rape and turnips. 



FEEDING. 



In feeding with these, two methods are used : either turning the stock 

 upon the roots, which are thus eaten off upon the field ; or, carting the turnips 

 to a bare pasture, where they are sliced and fed. The first is the common 

 custom when the land is dry enough to hear the sheep, for it is not only 

 the least troublesome, but it ensures the dung and urine being efficiently 

 laid upon the ground ; which is, indeed, the main object of this fallow crop. 

 The field should, however, be hurdled off in partitions, so as to ensure the 

 entire consumption of the crop ; or, if the lambs be permitted to ranoe 

 over the whole, until they have eaten off the better part, they should be 

 afterwards fuliowed by the lean stores and ewes, for which the roots are 

 loosened out of the soil by a man with a grubber, until they are eaten up 

 clean : a practice which is also customary with wedders which are intended to 

 be fattened. Great care should, however, be taken not to suffer the lambs 

 to touch either turnips or clover when the frost is on them. 



When the land, however, is xvet, the turnips must necessarily be carted 

 off ; and, whether the land be wet or dry, the same plan is generally 

 adopted with regard to beet-root. This is certainly the most advisable 

 mode of consumption for the sheep, for it ensures their quiet, and if they 

 be placed upon the driest part of the farm pasture, their wool cannot 

 suffer. It is also thought that the oily matter contained in the fleece, 

 and communicated by their bodies to the land — which in Norfolk is 

 much valued as the " teathe" — may be partly advantageous to the fol- 

 lowing year's grass ; wherefore, many farmers who have rich lowland 

 pastures upon which they feed the Leicester and other heavy breeds of the 

 northern counties, and are more in the habit of fattening than of breeding 

 sheep, almost invariably adopt the plan of drawing the turnips. They 

 have found that to give them cut into slices by the instrument called a 

 " turnip-cutter," is preferable to giving them in a whole state ; the same 

 quantity supplying a larger number of sheep by this method, and the sheep 

 so fed fattening quicker than when the ordinary mode is adopted.* 



In feeding with turnips, however, even if they should not fail, some dry 

 provender — either oat-straw, pea-haulm, or hav — is a very desirable addi- 

 tion ; as preventing any attack of looseness, as well as occasioning the food 

 to remain longer in the stomach ; thereby probably extracting a greater 

 quantity of nourishment from the turnips than could be obtained were they 

 eaten alone. If given in the fold before the sheep are turned out, the dry 

 food will also prevent all hazard of their being hoved ; by which accident, 

 particularly when the tops are succulent, many of them occasionally perish. 

 If hay should be thought too expensive, pea-haulm — of which the animals 

 are very fond — is an admirable substitute. Whatever may be given should, 

 however, be distributed with economy and regularity, and instead of being 



* See chap, xviii. of this volume^ on turnips. 



