160 MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP. 



a week previous ; and during this time let the best of hay, 

 accompanied with grain, be provided. If sheep, however, 

 have been trained to eat roots, and have partaken of them 

 freely through the month of March, the danger accompany- 

 ing the too sudden transition from hay or other dry food, will 

 in a measure be avoided. 



SEPARATION OF THE WEAK FROM THE STRONG, 



Notwitstanding the duty of the shepherd may have been 

 faithfully discharged by taking out from time to time such as 

 are failing in flesh during the winter season, and putting 

 them to better keep, yet not a few in indifferent condition 

 will be found in large flocks at this period, which had better 

 be separated and treated accordingly. The two classes 

 needing this attention perhaps the most, are generally ewes 

 w^hich have already or are about to yean, and yearlings. 

 Whatever they are, let them be put upon the best pasture 

 the farm will furnish, and a few only together. 



The separation will be quickest performed, by adopting 

 the following method : 



Let the flock be stationed one or two hundred yards distant 

 from a gateway or bars, and then, if called by the shepherd, 

 moving on a run, the weaker sheep will soon fall to the rear, 

 and when these are about to pass the gateway, let them be 

 cut off* from the others by some one in the vicinity. This 

 mode is sure, and is preferable to pounding the flock, as 

 mistakes are unavoidably committed by so doing, especially 

 with yearlings, owing to the unusual length of wool in indi- 

 vidual cases, which frequently hides from the shepherd their 

 impoverished condition. 



TAGGING OF SHEEP.* 



At or about this time, is assigned the important and indis- 

 pensable duty of the flock-master of thoroughly tagging his 

 sheep. It is wholly neglected by many, and with the great 

 majority of wool-growers the slovenly and half-way manner 

 of performing it is extremely censurable. It is thus, because 

 the manufacturer expects from us that the wool from about 

 the dock and below it, as well as that between the thighs, all 



* In England termed clatting. 



