No. 8. 



Sheep-Husbandry. — CerAdomyia. 



263 



show of fat stock, and also at Oxford, and 

 after three years' experience of the practice, 

 am decidedly of opinion that the fatting stock 

 thrive quicker, and the sheep with their 

 lambs do better than out of doors ; I bepin by 

 putting them into the yards in November at 

 night, letting them out during the day, and 

 as the season advances, I do not let them go 

 abroad at all, except in a fine sunny day, 

 when the ewes and lambs go on a piece of 

 dry grass, on which I give them cabbages or 

 turnips. I like the litter to accumulate un- 

 der them so as it do not heat; I think they 

 tread the litter with their little sharp feet 

 quite as effectually as bullocks, and the ma- 

 nure from them is better, the higher they are 

 fed of course the richer the manure. I place 

 salt before them in the yards, and the ewes 

 and lambs consume a large quantity, even the 

 very young lambs eat it with avidity. That 

 sheep do not suffer from confinement, I have 

 abundant proof; I tie them up in stalls like 

 horses, and keep the bucks there from season 

 to season, and they are as healthy as any that 

 are out of doors, and will get very fat. As 

 an experiment, I kept three pure merino 

 wethers every year in their wool, three suc- 

 cessive seasons from the time of their being 

 sixteen months old till they were shorn of 

 their three years' fleeces, they were never 

 out of the house, and I never knew them 

 otherwise than healthy, and in good fleshy 

 condition when stripped of their three years' 

 old fleece. I sent one to Oxford that was ex- 

 ceedingly fat, after having a fleece taken 

 from him that weighed 28 lbs,, and I shall 

 exhibit another next month extravaffantly 

 fat, with a fleece of 30 lbs. weight. My fold 

 yards are spacious and surrounded with sheds 

 made in the cheapest possible manner, ten 

 feet wide and six or seven feet high : some 

 persons prefer erecting sheds of more durable 

 materials, but cheapness places these within 

 the reach of farmers with short tenures. 1 

 have adverted to every circumstance calcu- 

 lated to recommend the practice of yard- 

 folding sheep in winter, of which I am a de- 

 ^cided advocate, and I know of nothing that 

 can render the policy of the system at all 

 questionable when the necessary means are 

 attainable with any tolerable facility." 



Your Subscriber. 



Oftentimes, extravagant praise is be- 

 stowed on a light, loamy-land farmer, who 

 has not a stone or other obstruction on his 

 land, and which has been well tilled by his 

 predecessor for the last generation, for the 

 clean and neat state of his drilled crops ; while 

 the stony-land farmer, with equal skill and 

 ten times the laborious exertion, is passed un- 

 noticed by superficial observers. 



To the Editor of tlie Farmers' Cabinet. 



Cecidomyia. 



Respected Friend, — Engagements, in- 

 volving the interests of others, will not per- 

 mit me to make any references to books for 

 the purpose of replying to the writers who 

 have commented upon the notes I oflered for 

 the Cabinet, in relation to the Hessian fly. 

 Permit me, however, to employ the earliest 

 opportunity of expressing gratefulness and 

 thanks for the kind disposition manifested by 

 the author who signs W. L. H., VVoodlawn, 

 Harford County, Maryland. It is an act of 

 common justice, in addition, to state, in reply 

 to some others, that neither the American 

 Philosophical Society, nor the lady who ori- 

 ginally made the observations offered for pub- 

 lication, is in any way answerable for the in- 

 sertion of my paper in the Cabinet, or for any 

 thing contained in it. The writer of this, 

 and the paper just named, served, at the ear- 

 nest and repeated request of personal friends, 

 on the Committee which first reported on 

 Miss Morris's observations ; and that at a 

 time otherwise extremely inconvenient, from 

 the burden of engagements, temporary in 

 their character, but consisting in serious du- 

 ties to others, and utterly destructive of any 

 thing like application. Any one disposed to 

 be severe with a lady should be told that the 

 observations were not designed by Miss AL 

 for publication, but were also requested of 

 her for that purpose by friends, aware of the 

 great labour and accuracy which she had be- 

 stowed on the habits of insects. It having 

 been ascertained that the proposed paper in 

 the Transactions would not appear for some 

 interval of time, it was thought that the 

 speedier dissemination of the facts alleged to 

 have been observed, would save time in in- 

 vestigations and experiments on the growing 

 crops; and for this purpose the use of the 

 pages of the Cabinet was solicited. In doing 

 this, inconvenience was incurred ; but the 

 hope was entertained of doing some service 

 to the community. I cannot conceive what 

 there is in these efforts to do fellow-citizens 

 a service, that should authorize any one to 

 feel displeasure or offence, 



I care nothing whatever for " theories" on 

 this subject. The question is one of facts. 

 Knowing the lady, whose name has so fre- 

 quently been repeated, to be a careful, mi- 

 nute and intelligent observer, and opinions 

 and assertions on this subject being various 

 and even contradictory, as your last number 

 is of itself sufficient to show, I cannot see 

 any harm in the publication of what she be- 

 lieved she saw, or in the addition of the de- 

 scriptions from Say. 



As to personal charges against myself, of 

 not having read on the subject, they do not 



