619 



these have been grown in the older settled districts of Australia, 

 they have proved of very great value. I know of one property that 

 was naturally a bare plain, and on which, so keen was the force of 

 the winter gale, it was impossible to lamb ewes. Since then exten- 

 sive plantations have been grown on this country, and ewes lamb 

 comfortably under the shelter of thick belts of timber. 



In a newly taken up country the farmer may not care to go to 

 the trouble of forming plantations, but he can run up a breakwind 

 with brush wood or branches of trees that will be of great benefit 

 to his ewes at lambing time. 



To iind the percentage of lambs in a flock multiply the number 

 of lambs by 100, and divide by the number of ewes. 



PERIOD OF GESTATION. 



The period of gestation appears to bear some relation to the 

 size of the animal. It is approximately as follows : Elephants, 

 twenty to twenty-three months ; giraffe, fourteen months ; drome- 

 dary, twelve months ; buffalo, from ten to twelve months ; mare, 

 eleven months ; cow, 285 days ; bear, six months ; reindeer, eight 

 months ; sheep and goat, live months ; sow, four months ; dog, fox 

 and wolf, sixty-two days ; rabbit and hare, thirty days ; squirrel, 

 twenty-eight days ; guinea-pig, twenty-one days. 



Mr. Darwin states ( Animals and Plants under Domestication) 

 that it has been observed in Germany that the period of ges- 

 tation is longer in large sized than in small sized breeds of cattle. 

 In sheep the period varies from 143 to 156 days, but in the reports 

 that have been made on the subject the bulk of the ewes lambed in 

 149 to 153 days. The period of the Southdown is shorter than that 

 of the merino by nearly six days. It is believed by some practical 

 sheep breeders that the period of gestation is shorter in the breeds 

 that mature early, which may explain the difference between the 

 Southdown and the merino. It is also the general opinion that the 

 ewe goes longer with a ram lamb than with a ewe lamb. It is a safe 

 thing for the sheep farmer to reckon the period of gestation in the 

 sheep at 150 days. 



INFLUENCING THE SEX. 



It is a fad with many sheep farmers that they can influence the 

 number of ram or ewe lambs at will. This has been a hobby with 

 some sheep farmers for many centuries, and numberless experiments 

 have been made with the view of proving the theories held. As a 

 rule these experiments have been made on such a small scale and 

 extending over such a brief period of time, that they are practically 

 worthless. From what is known on this subject, it seems highly 

 probable that there is generally a small percentage of males in 

 excess of females. Some writers assert that the changes in the 

 relative numbers of the sexes run in cycles, but as to what influences 

 the sex of the offspring of sheep, or, indeed, of any other animal, 

 man included, we are quite in the dark. Scientists know nothing 



