Essay on Sheep, 79 



run with the ewes, as they are stronger, they 

 will feed up )n the most delicate hay, and com- 

 pel the ewes to eat the refuse. They will also 

 render it difficult to give the ewes separately 

 that succulent food which they require before 

 and afier they have lambed, unless you are 

 provided with such a quantity as will serve for 

 the whole flock, both ewes and wethers. The 

 following is the plan I pursue for a stock of 

 two hundred ewes and seventy wethers. 



I have chosen two warm dry situations, shel- 

 tered from the north-west wind by hills, and 

 open to the morning sun in winter at its first 

 rising. On the north side of this I have 

 erected two barracks of about twenty-four feet 

 square, with an elevation of about six and an 

 half feet from the ground to the hay-loft. 

 These, standing at a distance from each other, 

 I have united by a shed having the same eleva- 

 tion, and being about ten feet deep, with a hay- 

 loft above. This shed is open to the south, and 

 boarded to the north; the barracks are boarded 

 up, the one on the north and west, and the 

 other on the north and east; the sheds cover 

 the east side of one and the west side of the 

 other, uniting them together. Along the whole 

 of this building racks are erected, with a trough 

 at the bottom to catch the hay-seed, of which 



