20(3 SHEEP. [APRIL. 



is governed bv the food in April. Few farms are 

 stocked properly with sheep throughout the whole 

 year, for -want of more food at this season. But 

 there are some farmers, who have felt these incon- 

 veniences so strongly, that they have taken steps 

 to remedy them. They keep their turnips as long 

 as possible, so as to make their shoots an object of 

 sheep-food ; and every year they sow a piece of 

 clover and ray-grass on land in pretty good heart, 

 to be ready in the spring to take their flocks from 

 turnips, and keep them till the general turning to 

 grasses arrives. This conduct, I must observe, is 

 an improvement on the other, for it gets rid of 

 three great evils : depending on rye, which is soon 

 eaten ; feeding on wheat, which is pernicious to 

 the crop ; and turning too soon into the general 

 pastures. But, at the same time that it effects 

 this advantage, it is open to some objections, which 

 make further improvement necessary. Keeping 

 the turnips long in the spring is very bad hus- 

 bandry. It damages greatly the barley crop, both 

 in robbing the land, and preventing it from being 

 i in proper time : nor is the food of great 

 consequence ; for many acres of turnip-tops are 

 requisite, the number of which must be in propor- 

 tion to the; stock of sheep ; and, as to the roots, 

 M3 sticky and hard after the tops are at 

 all advanced, that their value is trifling. With 

 <o ray -grass, the clover mixed with it 

 is seldo!.'! above three inches high at this season ; 

 and a great breadth of ground to a given stock, 



must 









