176 SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



caking lambs will prove remunerative, and the benefit to the 

 land will come in as a pleasant reflection which will no doubt 

 in time be realised. 



FODDER CROPS FOR SUMMER FEEDING. 



The high estimate of the value of fodder crops has of late 

 years been raised by researches as to the waste of fertilisers 

 through drainage. It has been shown that fodder crops pre- 

 vent waste by appropriating fertilising matter, which, but for 

 them, would flow into drains, or into the inaccessible parts of 

 the subsoil. Sheep play an important part in conjunction 

 with fodder crops in this important matter. The crop, in 

 the first case, is a collector of plant food from the air, and the 

 soil, including the subsoil ; and, having fixed certain important 

 constituents, the sheep convert them into a marketable com- 

 modity, returning a large proportion of the food constituents 

 to the soil, thus enriching the surface. Sheep have been very 

 properly spoken of as an exhausting stock to the land, but 

 while this is the fact, the reverse is also true ; for sheep may 

 be used to improve land, more perhaps than any other agency. 

 We know that in Kent and other counties a ewe flock is 

 looked upon as scourging, chiefly on account of the drain it 

 entails, upon the land, of phosphates. In Sutherlandshire, 

 sheep grazing has impoverished large tracts of mountain 

 pasture. Such facts only teach the necessity of carrying 

 on sheep-farming upon rational principles, and especially 

 show the importance of feeding with artificial foods, as well 

 as with the natural herbage of the farm. Bearing this in 

 mind, we may safely say that the more sheep a farm carries 

 {within certain limits) the better, for then the farmer is com- 

 pelled to assist his flock with artificial foods. 



The growth of fodder crops, and their consumption with 

 cake and corn, are the best means of increasing a sheep stock. 

 The proper conditions must, however, be observed, for it will 

 not answer any good purpose to attempt to force a system on 



