66 The Shepherds^ Guide, 



occasion. A cow can generally be procured, 

 and very fine lambs may be raised in that way : 

 but it is the least convenient, as the lamb when 

 young must be held to the teat ; and even when 

 sufficiently grown to suck, it must be attended 

 while it sucks, lest the cow should kick and in- 

 jure it. For these reasons a sucking bottle, pre- 

 pared with a pipe, and a proper air vent, or what 

 is still better, a foster mother is to be preferred : 

 and when a ewe can be procured she may easily 

 be made to take and become fond of the lamb, by 

 covering the lamb for a few days with the skin of 

 her own lamb : or by rubbing the lamb of the 

 foster mother with asafcetida ; and when she has 

 become accustomed to the odour, to rub the foster 

 lamb in the same manner, and then change them. 

 When it is wished to give the lamb two mothers, 

 as is said to be the practice in Spain, and by 

 which very fine lambs may be raised, either of 

 these methods may be pursued. I have already 

 mentioned Chancellor Livingston's boxes, by 

 means of which lambs may be early taught to eat 

 boiled oats, roots, cabbages or tender hay, which 

 brings them forward very fast. It is of very 

 great consequence to feed sheep well during their 

 infancy, if we wish to fortify their constitutions 

 against the diseases to which they are most ex- 

 posed. From the want of abundance of food in 

 the earlier stages of life, sheep are often feeble^ 

 and degenerate in some of their best qualities •; 



