

THE LAMB HURDLE. 175 



They can run forward to crop the choicest and sweetest 

 herbage, and return to their mothers for milk. Neither is 

 it necessary to allow lambs too large an area, as a large outer 

 fold fenced with hurdles, say, of a quarter acre in extent, is 

 sufficient at once, and as the ewes advance, the outpost 

 devoted to the lambs is also pushed forward. 



Close folding allows of the greatest amount of variety in 

 feeding. The sheep may, for example, return to a fold of 

 vetches the last thing at night and feed upon a fresh bite in 

 the early morning. A good shepherd should be up early, and 

 if he can give his charge a feed at five o'clock they eat heartily 

 before the sun is powerful, and will take their corn at nine 

 o'clock with an appetite. He will then grind up some mangel 

 or white cabbage, and toward mid-day transfer the sheep to a 

 fold of rape, which ought to be provided near. At four o'clock 

 he will give them a run upon clover aftermath or sainfoin, and 

 towards evening he will take them back again to their lair 

 upon the vetches. Thus a happy day is spent, full of variety, 

 and this is the way in which lamb prodigies are reared and 

 astonish the eyes of ordinary farmers from districts where 

 sheep grazing means turning out into a grass field. The 

 difference in value in favour of the close-folding system, as 

 just described, will be about 2os. a head on lambs in 

 September. What would have been fair stock lambs, worth 

 253. to 3os. each, are developed into animals worth 455. to 

 505. without difficulty. As to cake, it is no doubt an important 

 consideration, but it pays to give it. When the best cake 

 is under id. per lb., half a pound on an average over the 

 whole period of summer grazing is only 3d. per week, some of 

 which must be allowed to remain in the land. If we allow, as 

 we think we may, half of the cake to be left in manurial value, 

 the charge upon the lambs for cake is reduced to i jd. per week, 

 or during a season of twenty-four weeks to 33. per head. If, 

 however, as might be preferred, " every tub should stand upon 

 its own bottom," and " every herring hang by its own tail," 

 then we think the direct expenditure of 6s. per head upon 



