DISEASES OF SHEEP. 181 



pounds, wkLe i wether, exhibited at Cambrido;e on Christmas day, 

 1840, weighed dressed, with the head on, two hundred pounds, aside 

 from yielding twenty-eight pounds rough tallow. The average ^yeight 

 of his wetheTS, however, at eighteen or twenty months old, is but 

 about thirty to thirty-five pounds per quarter. The bucks shear from 

 nine to eleven pounds; and the average shearing of the whole flock 

 is six pounds fifteen ounces, and of a quality of wool that we thought 

 better than the generality of South-downs. The fleece is close and 

 compact, and, we should think, would resist rain, sleet, and snow, 

 nearly as well as the best Merino." Mr. Allen adds, respecting Mr. 

 Webb's sheep, — "They are very hardy, and are never housed in 

 winter, but lie in the open fields, and are fed upon hay, with cut 

 turnips, sugar-beets, or mangel wurtzel. In the summer they are 

 taken to a poor pasture by day, at a distant part of the farm, for 

 change and exercise ; and towards night are brought near home, and 

 folded on vetches, clover, or rape. The lambs, after weaning, are 

 turned into fair pasture, and fed about a pint each per day, of beans, 

 oil-cake, or some kind of grain. Mr. Webb says he is an advocate 

 for good feeding, and that a good animal ahvays pays for it. This is 

 our doctrine, and if people want South-downs to starve, they had 

 better take up with the smallest of the old unimproved race." 



The editor of the Cultivator adds — " Messrs Bement and Mclnt3're, 

 in the vicinity of this city, have beautiful flocks of South-downs ; and 

 the flock of Mr. Rotch, of Butternuts, in this State, is one of the best 

 in the Union, embracing, as it does, the blood of the Duke of Rich- 

 mond's, and Messrs EUman's and Grantham's flocks, and now that 

 of Mr. Webb's." 



" Mr. Rotch's sheep have proved perfectly hardy, wintering finely 

 on nothing but hay ; and we have little doubt that where fine qualities 

 of wool are not the great object in sheep-growing, the South-downs 

 will prove to be one of the best breeds for the farmer." 



To ascertain the number and the whereabouts of the importers and 

 breeders of this admirable race of sheep, unequalled for mutton, un- 

 less it be to gratify the coarse taste for fat meat, the reader has but to 

 consult the pages "of the Cultivator, the American Agriculturist, and 

 other journals,'^for the names of Prentice, Rotch, Bem.ent, Mclntire, 

 Bagg, and others. The prices, we believe, are from twelve to twenty 

 dollars for thorough breeds. 



Tlie Dishley or BakcicelL, or new Leicester sheep. — With this breed 

 all persons at all conversant with sheep-breeding must be acquainted ; 

 so much so, that it is deemed only necessary to ^ay that according to 

 our observation, which has been not very limited, being among the 

 earliest importers of some of the best of them from one of the best 

 flocks in England, they have been thus accurately characterised : — 

 *' Heads clean, straight, and broad ; bodies round and barrel-shaped ; 

 eyes fine and lively; bones fine and small;" carried, as we think, 

 by ?klr. Bakewell in this last point to an extreme. An English writer 

 of hio-h character, Mr. Ellman, describes the wool of the Bakewell 

 16 



