41 



top and coarser grasses be left. It is dangerous in some 

 pastures to stock so hard with sheep as to make them eat 

 herbage which will disagree with them, and which they 

 would reject, if not pressed by hunger. It is bad to 

 be under stocked, but it is much worse to be over 

 stocked, which may be the case, in a dry summer, with the 

 best of mannagement, on light soils. Daisies, in any 

 quantity, are injurious to young sheep and lambs, often 

 giving them the gurry, which is attended with fever and 

 thirst, and if they can get at water, they will drink such 

 quantities as to prove fatal to them. Sheep will (excepting 

 in very hot weather), do very well without any water. If, 

 at the time of lambing, it is necessary that the shepherd's 

 hand should be introduced, it should first be rubbed over 

 with some strong oil or spirit. From introducing into the 

 ewe's inside a hand, sometimes almost as cold as a stone, 

 many have been lost. Ticks and lice often so infest tegs in 

 winter and spring, and make them so uneasy, as to prevent 

 their thriving ; these vermin may be destroyed by opening 

 the wool in two rows on each side, and putting in sheep 

 ointment, of half the strength of that used to cure the scab ; 

 or dipping them, all but the head, for about a minute, in a 

 poisonous solution,* which should afterwards be carefully 

 thrown on ploughed land. 



* Receipt for dipping fifty Lambs. One ounce of arsenic to 51bs. of 

 soft soap, boiled in nine gallons of water, then mixed with about 15 gallons 

 or more of cold water, to make it the proper strength, which is ascertained 

 by dipping in a live sheep-tick, and afterwards putting it on the palm of 

 the hand ; if it lives about one minute, and then dies, it proves the mixture 

 to be of a proper strength. The dipping trough should be, on the inside, 

 3ft. 6in. lon{ at top, and 2ft. 9in. at bottom. Width at top, 1ft. loin. ; at 

 bottom, 13in. ; depth, 22jin. A lid to fall back, which is supported by 

 two legs, high enough to keep it in a slanting position ; on this the lamb is 

 laid, after having been in the mixture, and rubbed for a minute ; and as 

 rails are fastened to the lid, all that runs, or that is squeezed from, the 

 lamb's fleece, returns to the trough. It is scarcely necessary to observe, 

 that the utmost caution must be taken to prevent any accident arising from 

 the use of so large a quantity of so deadly a poison. I should think that 

 any copper pot, or vessel, used on this occasion, would not be fit to hold 

 afterwards any liquid, for the use of man or beast. An old pot kept to 

 boil the arsenic in, the dipping trough, and a piil, would serve for the use 

 of a whole parish, or for a great number of farms. The time of dipping 

 the Iambs should be when the ewes are shorn, and then most of the ticks in 

 the flock will be destroyed. 



