76 FARM MANAGEMENT 



sold fat the following summer after shearing. 

 The produce may be sold as early fat lamb, or 

 summer-fat lamb, or if there be sufficient roots, 

 they may be held over till the following spring 

 and sold after clipping. 



The buying of sheep to fatten is gone in 

 for on arable farms where there is not sufficient 

 pasture to keep sheep long, and where the seeds 

 are put down for one year and sold off as hay. 

 The sheep are bought in the autumn and 

 fattened on turnips during the winter. On 

 heavy clay soils the winter folding of sheep does 

 more harm than good, tending, as it does, to 

 the further consolidation of soil that is already 

 too heavy, hence such farms are not adapted to 

 sheep. 



Sheep-farming has many advantages. In 

 the first place the keeping of sheep reduces 

 the labour bill to a minimum, as sheep largely 

 consume their food where it is grown and also 

 deposit their manure on the land direct. Sheep 

 are also excellent distributors of manure, and 

 are much better in this respect than cattle, who 

 drop their manure in large lumps. Further, the 

 food fed to sheep has a higher manurial value 

 than it would have if fed to any other stock. 



