AGRICULTURAL "MUSUEJM ^15 



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innumerable, could be adduced ; but these are sufficieri|, 

 to prove what is required. 



It has fallen to the lot ofthe author; in a greater degree 

 perhaps than any other person, to incur this risk in his 

 ©\vn practice, by depjiLUuring both store and fat she"p^ 

 of the finest quaHty of wool, on lands as rich as any ia 

 this Island ; in a former edition of these essaySj he stated 

 the danger which might attend it. 



By selecting ewes, neither too old nor too young, and 

 by allowing about ten bushels of bean meal to every hun- 

 dred ewes, which acts as a cordial to them, he had great 

 luck i;i lambing; but as the lambs when weaned were 

 sent oft to a dry tillage farm, there to be wintered, the 

 danger ceased: in the succeeding month of May, they 

 were sent back able enrugh to bear the strength of the 

 same keep, which, in the preceding summer, would have 

 destroyed Ihem. 



The effect of this strong keep, is not a rot in the livef^ 

 fcut a dropsy, or " red water," as it is termed in some 

 •ounties. — Lambs reduced by this strong feed, are not to 

 be trusted, in the subsequent autumn, in turnips or evea 

 on clovers ; nothing but the hardest grasses and dry fod- 

 der can restore them. 



With a complete conviction of this risk, by the exces- 

 sive heat of last summer, and the tota! want of sheep-feed 

 on his tillage farm, which the author had just then taken 

 possession of, he was driven to the alternative of sending 

 his flock of lambs to his marsh land, or to let them starve 

 where they were ; for the same heat which destroyed 

 his own keep, burnt up that of his neighbours also. The 

 loss was great, as he never ceased to predict; but it 

 was very much increased by the excessive rains which 

 followed one of the hottest summers ever remembered ; 

 and by the great severity ofthe winter, at the same time^ 

 the store-ewes supported themselves uncommonly well# 

 and the lambs dropped this year are in most excellent 

 condition, and numerous beyond any former example, ii| 

 l^oportioH to Ihe ej^tentof ib« tlock ef ewes. 



