250 THE SHEEP OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



with healthy stock, and so it happens that our discarded ewes 

 frequently realise from 50s. to 70s. a head. 



The best time for lambing will depend upon the climate and 

 our resources in the way of early spring food. If we are 

 favoured as to situation, and can insure a good succession of 

 suitable food, it is a great advantage to have our lambs early, 

 especially if we breed rams, or sell our lambs. But mistakes 

 are made by trying for early lambs where the farm is exposed 

 and the climate backward. It is easier, safer, and cheaper to 

 keep the lamb inside rather than out of the ewe. The duration 

 of pregnancy is about five months, or 152 days, with less 

 variation than is observed in many other animals. Mr. Tessier, 

 in his report to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, gives the 

 result of his observations on 912 ewes, The shortest period 

 was 146 days, and the longest 161 days — a difference of fifteen 

 days ; but more than three-fourths yeaned between the 150th 

 and 154th day after impregnation, bringing the average as 

 nearly as possible to 152 days, or twenty-one weeks and five 

 days. 



By cultivating the habit of early maturity, it has been 

 found practicable under certain conditions to breed from ewe 

 lambs ; and, though experience is as yet too recent to justify a 

 very decided opinion as to whether such a system can ever be 

 largely introduced, or be carried on profitably, we are quite 

 satisfied that if due care is exercised as to feeding, there need 

 be no check to growth — nay, more, we believe that the after- 

 growth will be better. Mr. Alfred de Mornay, of Col d'Arbres, 

 Wallingford, who was one of the first to illustrate the precocity 

 of Hampshire wether lambs — and whose extra stock lambs at 

 Smithfield led to the giving of prizes for lambs — is experi- 

 menting in this direction with every prospect of success. His 

 ilea is to develope early breeding properties by cultivation; he 

 commences by selecting the forwardest ewe lambs, and mating 

 them with a ram lamb equally precocious ; from the offspring he 

 uses only the forwardest specimens, and so very soon he expects 

 to educate lambs to a habit of early breeding. No doubt, 

 where the growth of the frame and the maintenance of the 

 fcetus are going on simultaneously, the food must be plentiful 

 and nutritious, but as we gain a year in time, we can afford 



