PRUSSIAN SHEEP. 93 



trates his knowledge of the fondness of sheep for variety of 

 food, which all experience confirms as contributing so much 

 to their welfare. 



" He properly maintains, that occasional exposure to the 

 air is favorable to the quality of the wool, and therefore, al- 

 though the sheep are housed at the beginning of November, 

 yet whenever it freezes, and the ground is hard, even al- 

 though it may be covered with snow, the sheep are driven 

 to the wheat and rye fields, where they meet with a kind 

 of pasturage exceedingly wholesome, and while they feed 

 there they are likewise benefiting the crop. When the 

 weather will not permit their being taken out, they are fed 

 on hay, aftermath, and chopped straw of various kinds. The 

 kind of straw is changed as often as possible, and wheat, 

 barley, and oat-straw, and pease-haulm follow each other in 

 rapid succession. The oat-straw is sparingly given, and 

 the pease-haulm is preferred to the wheat and barley-straw. 

 Oil-cake, at the rate of six or seven pounds per hundred, 

 and dissolved in water, is also allowed when the flock cannot 

 be turned on the young wheat. 



" Three or four weeks before lambing, an additional al- 

 lowance of hay and straw is given to the ewes ; and while 

 they are suckling, a little oat-meal is mixed with the solu- 

 tion of oil-cake. When the weather will permit the turning 

 out the ews, the lambs are still kept in the houses, and the 

 mothers brought back to them at noon and at night ; after 

 that the lambs are not permitted to graze with the ewes, but 

 are turned on the fallows or the clover of the preceding 

 year ; for it is supposed that they unnecessarily fatigue 

 themselves by running with their mothers, and almost inces- 

 santly trying to suck, and that on this account they refuse 

 the herbage on which they are placed and take less nourish- 

 ment than when quietly kept on separate pastures. A few 

 barren ewes, however, are placed with the lambs for the 

 purpose of guiding them, and perhaps teaching them to se- 

 lect the best and most wholesome food."* 



Many of the Prussian flocks, at the present day, rival in 

 fineness the purest Saxon, and command an equal price for 

 their fleeces. 



* Lasteyrie. ^ 



