334 



Farming of Lincolnshire. 



the flocks of breeding'-evves are very large, and it is not at all 

 uncommon to find 1500 hoggets folded upon turnips in one field. 

 The most general breed is a cross between the Lincoln and new 

 Leicester sheep ; but in the neighbourhood of Limber, &c., the 

 pure Leicesters are found. Further north, the sheep are Lin- 

 colns crossed with Leicester rams, and may be termed strong 

 Leicesters; and many flock-masters "finish" their sheep before 

 selling. The Leicesters are usually turniped two winters, and 

 sold fat from the turnips as two-shear wethers in the spring ; they 

 are sold to the butcher after being shorn twice, and but few are 

 sent to the Wakefield market. Where this is done, of course a 

 fewer number are bred. 



It is pleasing to see the sheep, in their folds of netting and 

 trays (or hurdles), eating their cut provender from troughs, and 

 resting on a thoroughly dry layer ; but on these hills, though ex- 

 posed to the cold north-eastern blasts, there is an entire absence 

 of the small stacks of straw and light sheds which seem indis- 

 pensable on the wettei- lowlands. The fields are so large, and 

 the sheep in such great flocks, that it would be difficult to pro- 

 vide shelters of adequate size and number, and the animals would 

 be found to lie under cover in rough weather instead of eating 

 their food. If it w^ere merely requisite to obtain the greatest 

 weight of meat in proportion to the food consumed, of course this 

 warmth would be in some degree a saving of turnips ; but the 

 aim of the Wold farmers being to make their land as solid as pos- 

 sible, it would not answer to house the animals, which by their 

 treading prepare the land for a future crop of grain. 



The seeds are generally drilled on the wheat and barley, or 

 sown at the same time as the barley, and usually consist of one- 

 third part red clover for mowing, and the rest trefoil and white 

 clover mixed, or sometimes trefoil and rye-grass, for pasture. 

 The clovers are mown once, and the eddishes grazed with weaned 

 lambs : the mixed grasses are stocked with ewes and lambs during 

 the early part of the season, and afterwards with ewes only, or, 

 where the sheep are of the Leicester breed, with the shearling 

 wethers also. Most farmers cake their hogs on the turnips, and 

 many aff()rd oilcake also upon the seeds : there can be no better 

 method of improving poor land than grazing seeds with cake-fed 

 sheep. Most of the grazed and mown seeds and clovers on the 

 northern Wolds are again manured for wheat, the clover eddish 

 being manured directly the hay has been carried : on that part 

 which is left unmanured 1 J cwt. of guano per acre is sown at the 

 time of drilling wheat. The grazed seeds will be useful up to 

 Christmas ; but there is always a scarcity of ^' keeping " in the 

 autumn. In hot dry summers considerable trouble is often felt 

 in Avatering the stock. On the higher wolds, where there are no 



