RAPE AND CABBAGE. l6l 



culent rape in the autumn, they will drink little or 

 no water. 



If sheep are turned in upon a rape pasture that 

 is neither very tall nor very dense, they will first con- 

 sume the leaves because of their greater succulence. 

 They will finally consume all the stems, eating them 

 off close to the ground. But if the rape should be 

 tall and thick they will feed it off clean, or virtually 

 so, as they pasture. The stems are considered even 

 better for laying on fat than the leaves. When the 

 leaves, but not the stems, of a rape pasture have been 

 eaten by sheep, if cattle are then turned into the same 

 to complete the depasturing, there will be much less 

 loss of rape by trampling than if the cattle had been 

 turned in at an earlier stage of the depasturing. 



On soils that do not poach, that is to say, on 

 soils in which the hoofs of the sheep do not sink 

 beneath the surface, sheep may be pastured upon 

 rape with profit until the closing in of winter. And 

 it may yet turn out that in warm latitudes they can 

 be pastured on rape through the whole of the winter. 

 Oftentimes they may be pastured on it with profit 

 after the first snows have fallen. But in climates 

 with cold winters, rape should be eaten off before 

 the arrival of severe frosts. After the rape has 

 been frozen until the stems become so crisp that they 

 are easily broken asunder, the value of the rape pas- 

 ture is much impaired. And when the early frosts 

 cover the rape with rime, the sheep should not be 

 allowed upon the rape until after they have partaken 

 of a feed of oats or other suitable grain. In the 

 absence of such food they should not be given access 

 to the rape until the frost has lifted, or serious diges- 

 tive troubles may arise, 

 ii 



