ON WETHERS. 101 



ning ten ounces of hay ; but the best method is to 

 give them as much as they can eat of this food. The 

 bread or oil cakes make the flesh oily, and gives too 

 much tallow ; it is necessary to substitute for the oil 

 cake, some other food for the last fifteen days ? in or- 

 der to give the flesh a good flavour. 



Q. What is the best food for stall feeding sheep ? 



A. The different kinds of grain, such as oats, or 

 coarsely ground barley, or barley flour, peas, beans, 

 &c._the food, which fattens the most, is oats mixed 

 with barley flour, or bran, or both together. If bran 

 is mixed alone with barley flour, it will stick to the 

 teeth, and the wethers are disgusted with it. 



Q. Is there other food for the fatting of wethers ? 



A. They may be fatted with turnips or cabbages. 



Q. How are sheep fatted with turnips ? 



A. They begin by pasturing the wethers upon the 

 stubble, after harvest, until the month of October, to 

 dispose them to fatting ; afterwards they are put into 

 a field of turnips in the day, and in the evening oats 

 with bran and barley meal are given them. Turnips 

 in a good soil, well cultivated, and eaten before being 

 too old, rotten or frozen, are seldom less beneficial, 

 and perhaps quite as good as grass for fatting ; they 

 make the flesh tender and well flavoured ; but when 

 good food is given them in the troughs in the eve- 

 ning, it contributes still more to fatten them, and to 

 making the flesh tender : it preserves them from sick- 

 ness, which turnips in a moist soil will give them. 

 Turnips, which are old and wormy, rotten or frozen, 

 make bad food : an acre of good turnips, may fat 

 thirteen or fourteen wethers.- 



