CHAPTER VI. 

 SUMMER CAEE AND MANAGEMENT. 



THE EWE FLOCK. 



In winter the shepherd is a god to his flock. Shut 

 away from natural sources of food supply the sheep 

 depend entirely upon his providence and therefore 

 their thrift rests entirely upon his knowledge and 

 willingness to give. In summer Nature provides for- 

 age in abundance, and turned out in the fields the 

 sheep can choose as their instincts prompt them. 

 They should then thrive upon pasture as nowhere 

 else. They would were it not for two things : 

 one that the shepherd too often considers a 

 "pasture" as being an enclosure surrounded by a 

 good fence, regardless of what the forage may be 

 within ; the other that in summer time come pests of 

 flies, maggots, worms and internal parasites. The 

 shepherd who thoroughly learns the lesson of pre- 

 vention of these pests will find his work a joy and 

 will stay with it and make a large profit from his 

 flock. The man who simply turns the flock to pasture 

 and gives it no more attention or thought will very 

 likely find himself confronted with a lot of diseased 

 and unprofitable sheep within a few years and his 

 farm perhaps so infected with germs of parasites 



(163) 



