SHEEP ItARNS OR STABLES. 215 



tively, for each. And, finally, the farmer was pot so apt, 

 under such circumstances, to see all his sheep daily with his 

 own eyes ; nor was either he or his shepherd half so prone to 

 turn out in the night to take care of the sheep or the lambs, 

 provided a change of weather, the rising of a gale, or any 

 other circumstance rendered it expedient.* 



It is now usual to construct the sheep, like the horse and 

 cow barns, near the farm-house. When the farm flock does 

 not exceed about three hundred, it is often wintered in a 

 single barn which has separate apartments, holding from 

 seventy-five to one hundred sheep each ; and each apartment 

 has a separate outside yard. The upper story of these barns 

 is devoted to hay for the sheep : the under one is eight feet 

 high, and floored on the bottom if it is necessary to insure 

 perfect dryness. 



It is common to take advantage of a slope in the ground, 

 and by means of a small amount of excavation, so to place the 

 sheep barn that while the doors of the basement story open on 

 a lower level, those of the second story open upon a higher 

 level, or on the surface of an ascent, on the opposite side — so 

 that liay can be drawn on wagons into the upper story. This 

 is something of a convenience, and was a great one before the 

 invention of the horse pitch-fork. The side of the lower story 

 which supports the bank of earth resting against it, is generally 

 composed of stone -wall — this being necessary both for 

 strength and durability. In various states of the atmosphere 

 this wall exudes moisture, or, as it is termed, "sweats," — 

 diffusing dampness through the apartment. Unless that 

 apartment is far higher, more spacious and better ventilated 

 than would otherwise be necessary, this dampness is unques- 

 tionably prejudicial to the health of sheep. The better course 

 would be, where such a barn is thought desirable, to build it 

 entirely independent of the bank-wall and connect ,them with 

 a short bridge. 



The usual way of dividing the lower story of the sheep 

 barn into apartments for different parcels of sheep, is simply 



* For example, I remember some twenty or twenty-five years since to have 

 had several hundred ewes with young lambs left out on a warm and beautiful niglit 

 in early May, in four atijoining fields. A little after midnight I was wakened by the 

 first howl of a north-easter, which was accompanied by a blinding snow-storm. 

 This was a case to say come instead of go. In fifteen minutes three of us, with our 

 lanterns, had started for the fields about half a mile oif: and we worked on until 9 

 o'clock the next morning in getting in the sheep, and half frozen lambs, and in resus- 

 citating the latter. We proWbly saved|n;hundred lambs which would have perished 

 before morning. Had these sheep be^|Ht in the same number of parcels half a mile 

 from each other — some of them a nfil^and a half from my house — what chance 

 would there have been to save the great body of the younger Iambs ? 



