FEEDING SHEEP ON LINSEED. 



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adopt a system that will ensure profit to himself, rent to his 

 landlord, and employment to his labourers ; because it would 

 enable him to double his usual number of cattle, to make two 

 returns of fat bullocks in a year, and to apply to his land an 

 abundance of efficacious manure : a system based upon funda- 

 mental principles, depending upon its own resources, requiring 

 neither foreign food, foreign manures, nor chemical prepa- 

 rations : a system simple in practice, powerful in effect, and 

 applicable to every grade of farmer : a system more important, 

 if possible, to the breeder than to the grazier, if we may judge 

 from the remarks of the Duke of Buccleuch, at a meeting of 

 the Dumfries Agricultural Association ; and from the mise- 

 rable spectacles that appear in our cattle-markets — spectacles 

 at variance both with humanity and judicious management. His 

 Grace animadverted upon the deteriorating effect of keeping 

 cattle upon straw in winter, and advised the adoption of some 

 method that would, at least, retain the condition acquired in 

 the summer, and improve the manure. Linseed-meal boiled 

 for a few minutes, and intimately incorporated with straw, 

 will achieve both objects. For instance, Mr. Partridge has 

 21 score of ewes, to which a peck only is given per day, at the 

 cost of Is. 9d., or a penny per score, including the expense of 

 crushing, boiling, &c. 



That so small a quantity of linseed should be divided 

 amongst 420 sheep, must, of course, appear paradoxical ; but 

 the following explanation will remove doubt : — 



A peck of linseed reduced to fine meal is stirred into twenty 

 gallons of water ; in about ten minutes, the mucilage being 

 formed, a pail-full is poured, by one person, upon two bushels 

 of cut hay thrown into a strong trough, while another mixes it 

 with a fork, and hastens the absorption with a small rammer. 

 The like quantity of chaff is next added with the mucilage 

 as before, till the copper is empty. The mass being firmly 

 pressed down, is, after a short time, carried in sacks to the 

 fold, where I had the pleasure of witnessing the avidity with 

 which sheep devour hay, before so ordinary that they refused 

 to eat. As the lambing season advances, and circumstances 

 require, the proportion of linseed will be increased — a method 

 that all who are straitened for provender will find it their 



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