1058 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



7185. Marking is performed on eacli sheep about a week after the fleece is removed. 

 The object is to identify the individuals as the property of the master. Sometimes initials 

 are impressed, and at other times other marks. They are impressed by stamps, or merely 

 chalked or ^painted on. A stamp dipped in warm tar is the most durable mode. Some 

 place the mark on different parts of the sheep, according to its age ; others cut the 

 margin of the ears in different ways. 



7186. Shortening the tails of the sheep is performed in almost all the sheep districts of 

 the kingdom except in Dorsetshire, which seems to be a useful practice, especially with 

 long-woolled sheep, in keeping the animals more clean behind, and of course less liable 

 to be stricken with the fly. 



7187. It has, however, been suggested in the ninth volume of Annals of Agriculture, that by this custom 

 the sheep may be rendered less able to drive away the flies. The general prevalence of the practice 

 would, however, seem to prove its being of advantage. There is much difference in the manner of per- 

 forming the business in different districts in respect to the length, but four or five inches being left is 

 quite sufficient. It is usually done while the animals are young. In all sheep pastures the hedges should 

 be well cleared from briars, as their coats are often injured by being torn by them. And all sorts of per- 

 nicious reptiles should be as much as possible destroyed, and removed from such land. 



7188. IVie mode of pasturing sheej), or of feeding them on herbage or roots having been 

 described when treating of these crops, the more general practices of rearing and 

 management of lowland sheep husbandry may be considered as developed. Some pecu- 

 liar practices and the mode of fatting lambs will be found in subsequent sections. 



7189. The practice of giving salt to sheep deserves to be generally recommended. It is given in small 

 long troughs every day throughout the year, and in rainy weather twice a day, or under cover, that it 

 may not be washed away. The practice is particularly recommended, when sheep are first put to turnips. 

 A to the quantity for each sheej), it is said that any quantity may be laid before them, and that no danger, 

 but the reverse, will result from their having at all times as much as they will voluntary take. 



SuBSECT. 2. Rearing and general Management of Sheep on Hilly and Mountainous 

 Districts, or ivhat is generally termed Store Sheep Husbandry. 



7 1 90. The best store farmers in Britain are unquestionably those on the Cheviot hills, 

 which border the two kingdoms ; and an account of their management may be considered 

 as applicable to the mountainous districts of the whole kingdom. It is, indeed, applied 

 by the migrations of the Cheviot and Teviotdale farmers, both in the North Highlands, 

 cxn the Sutherland estate, and in Wales. No regular system of store farming, as ob- 

 served by Napier ( Treatise on Store Farming), appeared previously to his own ; and 

 accordingly from this work, and an excellent account published in the Supplement to the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, we have extracted what follows. 



7191. A general idea of the extent and nature of a store farm may be obtained by referring to that of 

 Thirlstane in Ettrick forest, a plan of which {fig. 893.) is given by Captain Napier. It contains one thou- 

 sand six hundred and fifty-one acres ; of which one thousand four hundred and sixty-four acres are in 

 open hill pasture, seventy in plantation, forty in arable and meadow, about sixty in six enclosures, and 

 the rest in shepherds' and other cottagers' houses, with their allowance of ground for a garden and cow. 

 What distinguishes this farm from most others is the number of stells, or small circular enclosures ( O ) 

 fbr sheltering and feeding sheep during storms of snow, which are distributed over it; being no fewer 

 than thirty-seven. The advantages of these stells in districts where sheep are liable to be buried by snow 

 Captain Napier considers very great, and to promote their more general introduction seems to have been 

 one principal inducement for publishing his book. We shall recur to the subject in the following section, 

 when treating of cotting, folding, housing, &c. In the mean time, we are informed that Captain Napier's 

 round stells are not generally approved of, but that one is preferred which has four concave sides. See 

 Fairbairn's Treatise on Store Farming, Edin. Svo. 1825. 



7192. in the practice of store farming the rams are put to the ewes for the purpose of copulation in 

 November, a little earlier or later, according to the prospect of spring food, but seldom before the eighth 

 or tenth of that month. The number of rams required is more or less, according to the extent of the 

 pasture, and their own age and condition. If the ewes are not spread over an extensive tract, one ram to 

 sixty ewes is generally sufficient. It is usually thought advisable to separate the gimmers (sheep once 

 shorn) from the older ewes, and to send the rams to the latter eight or ten days before they are admitted to 

 the former. Notwithstanding this precaution, which retards their lambing season till the spring is farther 

 advanced, ewes which bring their first lamb when two years old, the common jjeriod on the best hill farms, 

 are often very bad nurses, and in a late spring lose a great many of their lambs, unless they are put into 

 good condition with turnip before lambing, and get early grass afterwards. This separation, and difference 

 in the time of admitting the rams to the ewes and gimmers, should therefore be always attended to. 

 When a farm under this description of stock has the convenience of a few good enclosures (as in Thirl- 

 stane farm for example), still more minute attention is paid by skilful managers. It is not sufficient that 

 the rams are carefully selected from perhaps double the number, the ewes also are drawn out and assorted, 

 and such a ram appropriated to each lot as possesses the properties in form or fleece in which the ewes 

 are deficient. In other cases, the best ram and the best lots of ewes are put together. When neither of 

 these arrangements can be adopted, owing to the want of enclosures, it is the practice to send the best 

 rams to the ewes for a few days at first, and those of an inferior descriptions afterwards. In every case, 

 when the farmer employs rams of his own flock, he is careful to have a few of the best ewes covered by a 

 well-formed and fine-wooUed ram, for the purpose of obtaining a number of good ram-lambs, for preserv- 

 ing or improving the character of his stock. 



7193. The stock through lainter, in a mere breeding farm, consists of ewes and gimmers, which should 

 have lambs in spring ; ewe lambs or hogs ; and a few young and old rams. All these are sometimes 

 allowed to pasture promiscuously ; but on the farms around Cheviot the ewes and ewe hogs are kept 

 separate, and the ewe hogs are either put on rough pastures, which have been lightly stocked in the latter 

 end of summer, or get a few turnips once a day, in addition to the remains of their summer pasture. 

 The most effectual preventive of the desolating distempers to which sheep of this age are liable is turnips ; 

 and though they should never taste them afterwards, a small quantity is frequently given them during 

 their first winter. After the rams have been separated from the ewes, they are usually indulged with the 

 same feeding as the hogs. 



