Essay on Sheep. 77 



case it is better that the ewes should have ac- 

 quired two or three months more growth. With 

 a very large stock this might be troublesome 

 and hazardous; but a farmer that keeps about 

 thirty ewes might do it w^ith little loss or incon- 

 venience, by raising a few cabbages, turnips, 

 and potatoes extra, to gives his ewes at yeaning 

 time. I presume that every farmer knows that 

 a ewe goes fiv^e months with lamb, and of course 

 ho\V to regulate the yeaning by the keeping 

 off or admission of the ram. The number of 

 ewes that a ram will cover has never, that I 

 know of, been precisely ascertained. The 

 Spanish shepherds have one to twenty-four ewes, 

 and this seems to have been the rule in the days 

 of the patriarchs, as we may infer from some 

 passages in which their flocks are enumerated. 

 In France they seem to think forty the most 

 common. In England a ram highly kept has 

 gone to eighty ewes, but then precautions were 

 used to keep him from exhausting himself, by 

 giving him only one at a time. Without the^c 

 precautions, however, 1 have generally found 

 one ram sufficient for sixty or seventy ewes; and 

 have even known one to serve a hundred, but 

 I think he was injured by it. If 1 had my 

 election, I should not choose to put more than 

 forty ewes to a ram. If the rams arc let to run 



