82 DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



" Rich lowland herbage, in a climate which allows it to re- 

 main green during a large portion of the year, is favorable to 

 the production of large carcasses. If convenient to markets 

 where mutton finds a ready sale at good prices, then all the 

 conditions are realized which call for a mutton as contradis- 

 tinguished from a wool-producing sheep. Under such circum- 

 stances, the choice should undoubtedly, in my judgment, rest 

 between the improved English varieties the South-Down, the 

 New Leicester, and the improved Cotswold or New Oxford- 

 shire. In deciding between these, minor and more specific 

 circumstances are to be taken into account." 



For wool-growing purposes he thinks the Merino " possesses 

 a marked and decided superiority over the best breeds and 

 families of coarse- wooled sheep ;" and its inferiority as a mut- 

 ton sheep, he thinks is not so great as is generally supposed. 



IV GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 



The following hints are all condensed from Randall's excel- 

 lent work on Sheep Husbandry, to which the reader who may 

 desire further details is referred. 



1. Barns, Sheds, etc. "Humanity and economy both dictate 

 that sheep be provided with shelters to lie under nights, and 

 to which they can resort at will. In our severe winter storms 

 it is sometimes necessary, or at least by far the best, to feed 

 under shelter for a day or two. It is not an uncommon cir- 

 cumstance, in New York and New England, for snow to fall to 

 the depth of twenty or thirty inches, within twenty-four or 

 forty-eight hours, and then to be succeeded by a strong and in- 

 tensely cold west or northwest wind of two or three days' con- 

 tinuance,* which lifts the snow, blocking up the roads, and piling 

 huge drifts to the leeward of fences, barns, etc. A flock without 

 shelter will huddle closely together, turning their backs to the 

 storm, constantly stepping and thus treading down the snow 

 as it rises about them. Strong, close-coated sheep do not 



* These terrible wind-storms are of much longer continuance in many parts 

 of New England. 



