48 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Feb. 



Saxon Sheep. 



[Continued from page 17, January number.] 

 The means adopted to improve the wool of 

 the Saxon breed so much beyond the Merinos of 

 Spain consisted for the most part, originally, in 

 the system of breeding in-and-in, and a great 

 degree of care in management, which is briefly 

 but imperfectly, detailed by several writers, as 

 follows: — the first remarks are by Mr. Grove : 



"The Germans keep their sheep under comfortable shel- 

 ter during the winter. J5y this means they do not require, 

 in the first place, so much provender ; secondly, the tip 

 ends of the wool do not get weather-beaten, which is an 

 injury ; thirdly, a great quantity of manure is saved. 

 They hurdle their sheep during summer for the purpose of 

 manuring the land, vrhich makes it more productive. They 

 raise large quintities of roots, such as ruta baga, potatoes, 

 mangel wurtzel, carrots, round turneps, &c., to feed out 

 during winter. Combined with straw it is considered an 

 economical mode of wintering sheep. They enrich their 

 land, moreover, by this course of management, which ena- 

 bles them to keep still more sheep and cattle, and raise 

 more grain. Many farmers in thatcoi.ntry keep their sheep 

 from nine to ten montlis of the year in ihe yard ; some 

 only part of their flock, and others their whole tlock. For 

 this purpose they sow red and white clover, lucerne, and 

 esparrette, wliicli is mowed and fed to them in racks, three 

 times a day, and in wet weather a foddering of straw. It 

 follows, as a matter of course, that the st.ble and yards 

 ;iire well littered with straw every day. It is considered 

 that an acre, thus managed, will maintain double the num- 

 ber of sheep or cattle that it would to turn them out to pick 

 for themselves. I2y this course of management they are 

 enabled to keep large numbers of sheep, without infringing 

 much on their grain growing, and enabled to come in com- 

 petition with the wool-growers of other countries. As 

 there are no fences in that country, the sheep are attended 

 by dogs. One shepherd with his dog, will manage from 

 five hundred to eight hundred in the summer, all in one 

 flock." 



Mr. Carr, an English gentleman farmer, but 

 now a resident of Germany, states the following 

 in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society 

 of England." 



"Those sheep (Saxons) cannot thrive in a damp climate, 

 and it is quite necessary that they should have a wide 

 range of dry and hilly pasture, of short and not over-nu- 

 tritious herbage. If allowed to feed on swampy or marsiiy 

 irround, even once or twice in autumn, they are sure to 

 die of liver complaint (rot) in the following spring. They 

 are alway.s housed at night, even in summer, except in 

 the finest weather, when they arc sometimes folded in the 

 distant fallows, but never taken to pasture till the dew is 

 off the grass. In the winter they are kept within doors 

 altogether, and are fed with a small quantity of sound hay, 

 and every variety of straw, and which is varied at each 

 feed. Abundance of good water to drink, and rock salt in 

 their cribs, are indispensables." 



Baron Geisler has been many years one of 

 the most successful breeders of Sa.xon Merinos, 

 and for a long time (on the authority of Dr. 

 Bright) " he has exercised unwearied assiduity 

 by crossing and recrossing, so that by keeping 

 the most accurate register of the pedigree of 

 each sheep, he has been enabled to proceed with 

 a mathematical precision in the regular and pro- 

 gressive improvement of the whole stock. Out 

 of seventeen thousand sheep, comprising his 

 flock, there is not one whose whole family he 

 cannot trace by reference to his books ; and he* 

 regulates his yearly sales by these registers. 

 He considers the purily of blood the first requi- 



site towards perfection of the fleece.^' Dr. 

 Bright makes a few remarks on management. 



" For fourteen days before the coupling season the rams 

 should be daily fed with oats, and this food should be con- 

 tinued not only during that particular period, but for four- 

 teen days after ; and one ram will thus be in a condition to 

 serve sixty ewes, if other proper attention have been paid 

 to him previously. 



•' During the lambing period a shepherd should be con- 

 stantly day and night in the cote, in order that he may 

 place the lamb, as soon as it is cleaned, togetlier with its 

 mother, in a separate pen, which has been before prepared. 

 The ewes which have lambed should, during a week, be 

 driven neither to water nor to pasture ; but low troughs of 

 water for this purpose are to be introduced into each par- 

 tition, in order that they may easily and at all times quench 

 their thirst. 



"It is also very useful to put a small quantity of barley 

 meal into the water, for by tliis means the quantity of ewes' 

 rnilk is much increased. When the lambs are so strong 

 that they can eat, they are to be separated by degrees from 

 their mothers, and fed with the best and finest oats, being 

 suffered at first to go to them only three times a day, early 

 in t!ic morning, at mid-day, and in the evening, and so to 

 continue till they can travel to pasture, and fully satisfy 

 themselves." 



Although rigid attention is bestowed on these 

 sheep during winter, yet they are not quite the 

 hot-house objects which, froni the remarks of 

 Mr. Carr, the reader would infer. On the au- 

 thority of Mr. YouATT, although the sheep in 

 Saxony and Silesia are housed at the beginning 

 of winter, yet they are turned out and compelled 

 to seek, perhaps under the snow, a portion of 

 their food, whenever the weather will permit; 

 and the season must be unusually inclement in 

 which they are not driven into the yards at least 

 two or three hours in the middle of the day. 

 The doors and windows are also frequently 

 opened, that the sheep-houses may be sufficiently 

 ventilated. This is done as far north as Sweden. 



Very great care is taken by the Saxon flock- 

 master in the selection of lambs which are des- 

 tined to be saved in order to keep up the flock : 



" When the lambs are weaned, each in his turn is placed 

 upon a table, that his wool and form may be minutely ob- 

 served. The finest are selected for breeding, and receive a 

 jfirst mnrk. When they are one year old and prior to shear- 

 ing them, another close examination of those previously 

 marked takes place ; those in which no defect can be found 

 receive a second mark, and the rest arc condemned. A few 

 months afterwards a third and last scrutiny is made ; the 

 prime rams and ewes receive a ^Aw-f/ and final mark, but 

 the slighest blemish is sufficient to cause the rejection of 

 the animal. Each breeder of note has a seal or mark se- 

 cured to the neck of the sheep, to detach or forge which is 

 considered a high crime, and punished severely." 



Before the introduction of the Merinos into 

 Saxony, the indigenous sheep consisted of two 

 distinct varieties, one bearing a wool of some 

 value, and the other yielding a fleece applicable 

 only to the coarsest manufactures. Both of these 

 breeds have been most extensively crossed with 

 the Saxon Merinos, and very many mixed flocks 

 now exhibit fleeces little inferior to the best and 

 purest Escuria! sheep. 



According to Mr. Carr, the Infantado Meri- 

 nos are also cultivated in their purity, and are 

 described by him as having shorter legs, and 

 heavier rounder bodies than the Escurial Saxons, 

 with heads and necks comparatively short and 



