DECEMBER. 581 



SHEEP. 



Tins month your forward ewes may be expected 

 to lamb, when you should be attentive to keep them 

 much better than they have been in common 

 through the autumn : they should have plenty of 

 turnips or cabbages as fast as they lamb ; for cattle 

 that have young require as good keeping as those 

 that are fatting ; and if you let them have a rack of 

 hay always in the field, it will be much the better 

 for them. Draw the turnips or cabbages, and give 

 them on a dry grass field. One great advantage of 

 cabbages over turnips is the ease of cutting them, in 

 case of the hardest frosts, when turnips cannot be 

 had. 



In case of extreme bad weather, it will be advise- 

 able to bring your sheep under shelter. Most far- 

 are sensible of this, and drive them on such oc- 

 casions into their hay-stack yard, which is not a bad 

 way ; but much inferior to giving them their hay in 

 racks, in a warm yai'd, with sheds around it for 

 them to feed under. The use of such a yard is so 

 great, that I wonder they are not more common. 

 In driving snows, sleet and rain, the injury sheep 

 take in the open fields is great. Another circum- 

 *tauce which ought to have weight, is the raising 

 plenty of rich dung : by keeping your sheep in very 

 bad weather all day, and constantly of nights, in a 

 yard proportioned to their number, you fold them 

 perhaps in the most advantageous method of all 

 others : for if a layer of turf or marl be spread over 



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