EXMOOE SHEHP. 371 



The prize report on the farming of Somerset in the " Journal 

 of the Eoyal Agricultural Society " for 1850, part 2, contains the 

 subjoined description of the management of Exmoor flocks at 

 that period, of additional interest from being written by the 

 present Sir T. D. Acland, Bart., M.P., one of the principal 

 breeders : 



" The hill-country farmer generally keeps a breeding flock of 

 horned ewes and a flock of wethers, which run on the hill sum- 

 mer and winter. The number of his ewes will be limited by the 

 extent of his water meadows, on which he relies in great 

 measure for the keep of the couples after the lambs are dropped. 

 The number of hill wethers depends on the extent of the common 

 right attached to the farm. About the 20th of June all the 

 sheep are gathered for sorting and shearing. The mouths of the 

 sheep are examined, and those whose teeth are broken are 

 drafted and kept back from the hill to be sold or fatted off. The 

 ewe hoggets replace the draft ewes, and the wether hogs of the 

 former season are shorn with the hill wethers, and turned off to 

 the hill after being signed with some large mark which can be 

 known at a distance. They cost nothing but the trouble of an 

 occasional gathering until next year, and the only profit they 

 yield is about 51b. of wool. In their fourth or fifth year they 

 may be brought on to grass. They are also used as labourers on 

 the farm, to eat the grass down close in the fall of the year, and 

 are sometimes marched in close phalanx up and down a ploughed 

 field to tread in the wheat. The ordinary sheep of the country, 

 when fat, do not weigh above 111b. or 121b. a quarter. Where 

 pains have been taken to improve a flock, they may reach, on the 

 average, 161b. or 181b. a quarter, and some are brought up to 

 241b. a quarter when fed on the Bridgwater marshes. There is 

 also great difference in the quality of the wool of a common and 

 of a well-bred sheep. It is the practice of farmers who have 

 good land as well as common, to put their draft ewes with a 

 small- headed and high-proof Leicester ram, to sell the lambs fat 

 in May, and the ewes as soon as they get fat. There are great ob- 

 jections to horned sheep. It is almost impossible to prevent them 

 from being infected with the scab while they are on the open hill ; 

 they also acquire such restless habits that they are always break- 

 ing the fences when brought into the inclosed ground. In 



B B 2 



