AUG.] STOCK LAMBS. 



can convert the profit to your own advantage^ In 



setting a stock of lambs, t! , you in;iy mark. 



a score of the best, for a future ram to be picked 

 up when opportunity oilers ; or, better still, to 

 send to the tup of some 1 rain -letter that takes them 

 in at a reasonable, price per head. By every year 

 selecting five or six per cent, and by every year 

 ring that number by a ram better than any of 

 your own, the flock must be on the improving 

 hand, and this may be done at a very small ex- 

 pence. 



This moment of setting the stock lambs is, that 

 of adding to, or diminishing the number of a flock, 

 by keeping more or fewer than the crones sold. 

 This is a very material part of the business : on a 

 farm with a given stationary sheep-walk, it is pro- 

 bably regulated by circumstances that rarely change : 

 but, on inclosed farms, where the sheep are sup- 

 ported by fields alternately in grass and tillage, 

 variations may easily be supposed, and the question 

 of hard or light stocking, that is, of close feeding 

 or a head of grass, .then comes in to decide the 

 number kept. If the produce or profit per head is 

 looked to, the conduct to be pursued is evidently 

 to stock lightly ; but, if the return is looked for in 

 corn from fields laid down for refreshment by re-t, 

 then close feeding is a very material point, and the 

 number kept will depend on it. With all the 

 grasses, &c. that do not decline from age, the 

 more sheep you keep, the more you may keep, and 

 the more corn ytou will reap when such are ploughed ; 



a cir- 



