138 SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



changed from pasture to pasture in accordance with the 

 supply of food. Corn may be given in small quantities when 

 green food is scarce, or in the case of twins, or it may be as 

 a little extra indulgence for two-teeth ewes or gimmers. The 

 main idea is, however, that of grazing and growing without 

 artificial help. A few thatched hurdles are put up, and a little 

 straw is laid down around them for shelter, and the master or 

 the shepherd visits them from time to time. Such visits I 

 have often paid in years long passed away. The duty of the 

 visitor is first to count the sheep, and this he does rapidly in 

 twos and threes, as they dot the field singly, in pairs, in 

 triplets, in little constellations, if the expression may be 

 allowed, in which the groups seem to arrange themselves to 

 the practised eye. The lambs are more difficult to count, as 

 they are often hidden by the bulkier forms of their mothers as 

 well as by hillocks, troughs, or other protections from the cold 

 winds prevailing at this season. Lambs are fond of racing, 

 and are not easy to count as they gallop the course they have 

 chosen, and skip and play on any dirt-heap, or natural mound, 

 or vantage ground. To notice if all are " full " to attend to 

 any little individual requiring a drop of cow-milk a bottle of 

 which, nicely warmed, the visitor carries with him ; to see if 

 the tails are all free and not stuck down with hard dung 

 these are the principal objects of the inspector, who, having 

 satisfied himself on these points, and seen that no ewe is lying 

 awkward in a furrow, and that no lamb has twisted himself 

 up in a sheep net, and in a word that all is right, walks or 

 rides away. Twice a day or oftener should the flock be 

 visited, and thus weeks pass by and the green foliage of April 

 and May give place to the browner pastures of June and July, 

 the sheep still finding their own living among the bents, and 

 dry, but nutritious, grass. After weaning, the lambs still 

 follow their dams, accepting their guidance, and thus they are 

 carried on until turnips swell into substantial winter keep. 



In the most recent account of Lincolnshire lamb manage- 

 ment, given in the report upon the Nottingham prize farm 



