43 



Southdown, lo come to the same weight, Leicester mutton 

 can be afforded to be sold at a lower price than Southdown. 

 Sometimes, I think 1 should like to buy in every year, 

 Southdown ewes, and put them to a well-bred, light- 

 woolled Leicester tup ; to make all the ewe lambs fat for 

 market, and keep the wethers for stores. As the Downs 

 are good sticklers, I should have good fat lambs ; but as, 

 generally, in all animals, the resemblance lo the male is 

 greater than to the female, I doubt if I should have my 

 wethers sufficiently black- faced to get this penny a- pound. 

 I wish some cunning man would put ine in the way of 

 having, with the cross mentioned, all the ewe-lambs wbite- 

 faced, and all the he-lambs black-faced. 



DISEASES OF SHEER The diseases of this most 

 useful animal are little attended to ; numbers die that 

 might be saved by medicine, if shepherds knew what was 

 proper to give them. Foot- rot is a most troublesome and 

 difficult disease to cure. Put the sheep in a dry fold ; 

 clear the dirt from between their claws with an old tooth- 

 brush ; apply to the parts affected, with a wooden skewer 

 or a feather, butter of antimony ; and let the sheep remain 

 on hour in the fold. Or, apply a paste, made of equal 

 quantities of blue vitriol, gunpowder, and train oil. 

 Scab :* the most effective remedy is the mercurial oint- 

 ment to be had, ready made, at all druggists; which is 

 also good for sore heads, caused by the fly ; or for maggots. 

 Gurry : one small tea-spoonful of turpentine, and four 

 table-spoonsful of salt and water one dose is often 

 sufficient. Or, Peruvian bark, ginger-root, and prepared 

 chalk one drachm in warm gruel, with a table-spoonful 

 of gin or brandy. If a severe case, a tea-spoonful of 

 tincture of opium. If a sheep that is fat, or nearly so, 

 appears to be off its food, for some days, from some 

 internal complaint, the safest plan is to have it killed. 

 Scouring of young lambs : ginger and rhubarb, one tea- 



* Mercurial Sheep Ointment. A quarter of a pound of quicksilver to lib. 

 of hog's lard: these must be stirred till thoroughly mixed, without first 

 killing the quicksilver, which is the common practice, and thus lessening 

 the efficacy of the ointment ; it will require great perseverance in the 

 stirring. 



