CHAPTER XVII. 



SUMMEE MANAGEMENT -OOHTINUED. 



DEAPTING AND SELECTION -:- BEGISTEATION -^ MARKING AND 



NUMBEEING — STOEMS APTBE SHEAEING BUN - SCAXD 



TICKS SHOETENING HOENS MAGGOTS CONFINING EAMS 



TEAINING EAMS — FENCES SALT TAE, SULPHITE, 



ALUM, &C. "WATEE IN PASTURES SHADE IN PASTUEES 



HOUSING SHEEP IN SUMMEE PAMPEEING. 



Deaeting and Selection.— To secure constant improve- 

 ment in a stock of sheep, as well as to remove all animals 

 from it -which have individual peculiarities which render 

 them comparatively unprofitable, or trouhlesome, it is 

 necessary: annually to "draft" the flock, as it is termed, that 

 is, exclude from it all animals which fall below a certain 

 standard of excelleiice. The leading defects to be had in 

 view in drafting are, first, the general ones of a want of the 

 requisite degree of perfection in the form and fleece, judged 

 by the existing standard of the flock. What satisfies the 

 owner, in these respects, in one generation of sheep, ought 

 not to in the next. However perfect the flock, there ought 

 to be some degree of improvement visible in the get of every 

 new stock ram, or that ram ought at once to give place to 

 another. And as each year brings more perfect younger 

 animals into breeding, the most defective old ones should be 

 excluded, or drafted, to make place for them. If, however, 

 the get of a new stock ram do not meet -expectation — or if 

 it is found that they bring some new prominent fault into the 

 flock, or, what is stUl worse, restore an old one partly bred 

 out and toward which a predisposition yet lingers in the 

 flock — or if they present a type not uniform with the 

 established type of the flock, even though, in itself, it may 

 be an equally good one — it would be better to draft tliis 

 entire get of lanibs, and allow the year of their birth to be a 

 stationary one in the progress of the flock. 



