146 



MANAGEMENT OF SHtEP. 



the root. None of our British breeds certainly have 

 this as a regular feature, nevertheless they are liable to 

 it ; and there are few farmers that have not, several 

 times in their lives, met with grun-mouthed sheep, as 

 they are called in Scotland, from their profile resem- 

 bling that of the pig, and suiting them for poking in 

 earth, rather than for eating in the usual way. Again, 

 if the structure of the sheep's mouth proves that it is 

 not adapted for eating turnips, the composition of the 

 turnip no less satisfactorily shows that it is not calcu- 

 lated as food for sheep. Bitterness is essentially ne- 

 cessary in the food of all herbivorous animals ; with- 

 out it, indeed, they sooner or later fall into ill health. 

 This property is shown by chemists to reside in the 

 extractive matter of plants, which has, therefore, been 

 called bitter extractive. The quantity is also found to 

 be in the inverse ratio of the nutritive powers of the 

 plant ; that is to say, where the plant abounds in 

 alimentary matter, the proportion of bitter extractive 

 is small, compared with what it is where the former is 

 deficient. Turnips contain a large quantity of matter 

 capable of affording nourishment to the body, but they 

 yield little or none of the bitter principle. In conse- 

 quence of this, sheep acquire fat rapidly for a time, 

 when placed on turnips ; but, experiencing a want of 

 the medicinal bitter, begin with equal rapidity to lose 

 the advantages they so recently gained. Their appe- 

 tite becomes depraved, and, from being shut out from 

 access to the stomachic intended for them by nature, 

 they take to devouring earth, or any substance capable 

 of serving as a substitute for it. " With regard to 

 the natural use of bitter extractive, it may be laid down 



