low 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part III. 



their ages. A plan of a sheep-house, combining also a lamb-house, is given by Kraft in 

 his Rustic Designs. It is wholly built of unbarked spars, or young fir-trees. The plan 

 ffig, 680.), contains four close apartments with doors for the lambs (o), and four others 

 with racks for the sheep (b). The elevation {fig. 681.) shows a gallery (c) , which sur- 

 680 681 



rounds the building, and is used as a pas- 

 sage for viewing the sheep, handling them with the crook, and at night for the perambu- 

 ations of a watch-dog. The roof being twenty feet from the floor, the interior is 

 abundantly airy, which for sheep is an important object. Another design in the same 

 work {Jig. 682.), is accompanied by an elegant Italian watch- 

 tower, with apartments therein for the shepherd. 



6486. The economy of the suckling-house is as follows : The 

 sheep which begin to lamb about Michaelmas are kept in the 

 close during the day, and in the house during the night, until 

 they have produced twenty or thirty lambs. These lambs are 

 then put into a lamb-house, which is kept constantly well lit- 

 tered with clean wheat straw ; and chalk, both in lump and in 

 powder, is provided for them to lick, in order to prevent loose- 

 ness, and thereby preserve the lambs in health. As a prevention 

 against gnawing the boards, or eating each other's wool, a little 

 wheat straw is placed, with the ears downwards, in a rack within 

 their reach, with which they amuse themselves, and of which they 

 eat a small quantity. In this house they are kept, with great 

 care and attention, until fit for the butcher. 



6487. The mothers of the lambs are turned, every night at eight o'clock, into the 

 lamb-house to their offspring. At six o'clock in the morning, these mothers are sepa- 

 rated from their lambs, and turned into the pastures ; and at eight o'clock, such ewes as 

 have lost their own lambs, and those ewes whose lambs are sold, are brought in and held 

 by the head till the lambs, by turns, suck them clean : they are then turned into the 

 pasture ; and at twelve o'clock, the mothers of the lambs are driven from the pasture 

 into the lamb-house for an hour, in the course of which time each lamb is suckled by its 

 mother. At four o'clock, all the ewes that have not lambs of their own are again 

 brought to the lamb-house, and held for the lambs to suck ; and at eight, the mothers of 

 the lambs are brought to them for the night. 



6488. Tills method of suckling is continued all the year. The breeders select such of the lambs as become 

 fat enough, and of proper age (about eight weeks old), for slaughter, and send them to markets during 

 December, and three or four succeeding months, at prices which vary from one guinea to four, and the 

 rest of the year at about two guineas each. This is severe work for the ewes, and some of them die 

 under excess of exhaustion. However, care is taken that they have plenty of food ; for when green food 

 (viz. turnips, cole, rye, tares, clover, &c.) begins to fail, brewer's grains are given them in troughs, and 

 second-crop hay in racks, as well to support the ewes, as to supply the lambs with plenty of milk ; for, if 

 that should not be abundant, the lambs would become stunted, in which case no food could fatten them. 

 {Middlesex Report, p. 355.) 



Sect. VII. On the probable Improvement which may be derived from Crosses of the 

 Merino Breed of Sheep. 



6489. The Merino^ or Spanish variety of the Ovis Aries, is supposed by Rozier 

 and other French writers, to have been originally imported from Africa to Spain. It is, 

 however, at least as probable, that they are indigenous to that country, or if originally 

 imported, that they have become modified to what they are, by the soil and climate. 

 Merinos first attracted attention in this country in 1 764, in consequence of the reports of 

 travellers, and a letter by Don John Bowley to Peter Collinson, published in the Gen- 

 tleman s Magazine for that year. A few were imported in 1788, and more in 1791, 

 and placed on the King's farm at Windsor, under the care of Sir Joseph Banks, who 

 was then constituted His Majesty's shepherd. The first sale of stock was made in 1 800 ; 

 and from these, a flock imported from Spain in 1801, by Lord Somerville, and some 

 other importations by different persons subsequently, have sprung all the Merinos and 

 Merino rams in the empire. Since that period, a number of eminent breeders and 

 scientific agriculturists have cultivated this breed both alone and by crossing, but espe- 

 cially Dr. Parry and Lord Somerville ; and though the utility which its introduction 

 may ultimately prove to the country can by no means be estimated at present, that it has 

 already done much good by directing the public attention to the subject, there can be no 



