n8 SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



best management. Such instances, which every frequenter of 

 markets hears of, tend to make flock-masters run risks simply 

 because no rule is to be always trusted, and mistakes do not 

 invariably cause mischief. Ewes ought to be kept in medium 

 condition. For eight or even nine months in the year they do 

 not require cake or corn, and the time to spend money upon 

 them is when they are nursing. 



IMPROVING A FLOCK. 



Whenever a permanent and improving ewe flock is main- 

 tained, the principle of selection and of weeding must always 

 be steadily kept in view. The draft ewes should comprise not 

 only the older but the faulty sheep. Whatever the type 

 whether Leicester or Southdown, Cotswold or Hampshire 

 the shepherd's crook, like the pruning hook, must ever be at 

 work, drawing out the weak and defective. However good 

 the flock, the draft will contain some inferior specimens ; and 

 the theaves, or two-tooths, ought to put the fresh head to the 

 flock. The annual progress of a flock is effected by the with- 

 drawal of the weaker members and the importation of 

 the newest and the best, and to this improvement there is 

 practically no limit. 



The master who perseveres in his work may see his flock 

 steadily improve in value to a point of excellence and of actual 

 money value of which he at one time scarcely dreamed. We 

 will hardly say, in the language of a late statesman, " beyond 

 the dreams of avarice," but certainly he would be a rash man 

 who dared to fix the possible limits of value to which a flock 

 of carefully-bred and long-established sheep might not reach. 

 Rome was not built in a day, and a sheep flock of command- 

 ing merit will probably have survived the original founder 

 many a year before the public compete for members of it as 

 though they were buying pictures. 



The determining reasons for drafting ewes are, in the first 

 instance, age and such defects as broken mouths, rupture, bad 



