Ch. XXXIX.] 



ON FOLDING. 



467 



whicli mifi^lit be fairly stated as worth 7s. 6d. per load, amounting to 

 10/. 105. The account, indeed, neitlier shows tiie breed of the sheep nor the 

 (juantity of turnips which the land produced, and is so fur imperfect; but, • 

 supposing the straw to be worth twenty shillings a load, and the labour of 

 spreading the manure upon the ground to cost ten shillings, this would 

 leave 4/. for the value of the dung, or three pence per week for that of each 

 sheep. In Hertfordshire also, 300 short-woolled sheep, penned in like 

 manner from the end of October to the end of March, and littered with 

 stubble, are staled to have produced 80 large cart-loads of the richest dung. 



The plan is, indeed, in use among many persons who have large flocks 

 upon light land, and is there employed for the purposes both of fatting 

 wethers for the market and of procuring shelter for the ewes at lambing- 

 time. Mr. Ellman of Glynde, has, for instance, two or three yards 

 with sheds twelve feet wide around them, which, being also littered, are ex- 

 tremely warm, and preserve many lambs in stormy weather. They may 

 be fenced with wattled hurdled-vvork, for the sake of coolness, lest a 

 greater degree of closeness might render the yard too hot ; and the system 

 has answered so well on several large farms, that the sheep are said to 

 have been found more healthy than when kept out in the fields in the 

 common manner*. 



The late General Murray had a standing fold, or rather a sheep-cote, 

 which inclosed an area of fifty-seven yards in length by twenty in breadth ; 

 thus containing 1140 square yards, in which u})wardsof 700 sheep could be 

 penned at night, with more than a square yard and a half for each. All 

 around it was a boarded shed, nine or ten feet wide, and also across the 

 middle ; the latter being open on both sides. A rack for hay placed against 

 the wall, with a small manger underneath, surrounded the whole; and 

 another, which was double, allowing the food to be eaten from both sides, 

 stood along the central shed t- There is also one upon a smaller scale, 

 which has been many years in use, on Mr. Lambert's estate in Ireland, of 

 which the ground plan, as described in his observations upon farming in 

 that country, is thus laid out. 



r 



L. 



/ 



It is raised upon a gentle declivity with a southern aspect, and is 80 feet 

 * Hertfordshire Report, p. 195. f Survey of Sussex, p. 319. 



2 II 2 



