071 Sheep Folding. , 83 



part of the year ; but where the pasture is scanty, this 

 cannot be done, as they will not be able to pick up a 

 sufficiency of food through the day, to enable them to 

 bear the fatigue of travelling to and from the fold, and 

 fasting all night. 



When they are fed in the fold, the case is different ; 

 but feeding in the fold will not admit of being practi- 

 ced as a top dressing after the seed is put in ; it seems 

 best calculated as a preparation for v/heat or barley, 

 upon fallows ; in either of these cases they may be fed 

 in the fold with propriety, as the offal of their food will 

 be ploughed in with the last furrow, and the land pro- 

 perly opened for the reception of the crop ; even this 

 requires to be done upon dry light soils ; upon these 

 a gentle shower will not be felt, nor will there be any 

 danger of the land being battered with the feet of the 

 sheep ; whereas upon clays or deep loams, the soil will 

 sustain more injury by the treading of the sheep in wet 

 weather, than all the benefit communicated by their 

 manure. 



Defects of the common way of folding Sheep. 



The custom of putting a great number of sheep into 

 a small fold, is very common, allowing them little more 

 than a square yard each, and confining together sheep 

 of every description, young and old, strong and weak ; 

 both practices are bad. In the first, if sheep are fed in 

 the fold, the space allotted to each will be so small, that 

 they will be crowded, and a considerable quantity of 

 their food trodden down and destroyed ; the breaths of 

 so many, confined together, within such narrow limits, 

 will keep them too warm, and when they ^re disposed 



