Tlie Lodge Farm, Castle Acre, Norfolk. 471 
Sheep. 
There are 400 breeding ewes kept on the farm. These are from 
Hampshire Down ewes bj a Cotswold ram, and they, again, 
put to a Cotswold ram. Tlie ewes are bought-in every year 
as ewe-lambs, and the rams are, as a rule, hired. The ewes 
are put to the ram on the best keep that may be on the farm. 
The Iambs, both male and female, are all fed off at from ten to 
twelve months old, and go to the London market. In July and 
August as many additional lambs are bought as may be required 
to feed off the grass and turnips. The hoggets are put on the 
water-meadows by day as soon as there is sufficient keep for 
<hem, — about the end of March. The ewes and lambs are kept 
•on seeds, the ewes having some locust beans, and the lambs 
a little cake and lentils, until they are weaned in July, when 
they are put on the clover eddishes. When the tankard, turnips 
are ready to draw, about the latter end of August, some are 
thrown to the lambs every day until the turnips are ready to be 
folded off. After the lambs are weaned, some of the ewes are put 
on the water-meadows, and sold to the butcher as soon as fat. 
During the winter the hoggets are kept on cut turnips and 
swedes with an allowance of cake, going on rye in the spring as 
soon as the turnips are finished ; they are drawn for shearing, for 
the London market, early in March ; and they are generally all 
gone by the middle of April, when fresh ones are bought for the 
irrigated pastures, rye, &c. Those on the irrigated pastures by 
day are removed to the uplands at night. Fleeces range from 7 
to 9 lbs. in weight. 
The lambing ewes live on anything they can get until a 
fortnight before lambing, when they begin to receive a few 
turnips. After lambing, which commences in February, they 
get better keep, including more turnips or some mangolds. 
The hoggets are washed, from 10 to 14 days before they are 
clipped, by the farm labourers in ordinary wash-pits, except 
those which go off early in the spring, which are washed in 
tepid water from the steam engine. Clipping is done by a kind 
of piece-work, which is practically task day-work. The price 
paid is 4*. and half a gallon of beer per score, but a man is not 
allowed to do more than a score in one day. Soon after the 
Jambs are weaned, generally towards the end of July, they are 
dipped in a solution of " Allen's composition." 
In February the hoggets are sometimes watered with a bottle, 
using 1 lb. of arsenic with soft soap and tobacco juice to every 
score of sheep. As a rule this is not required if the dipping has 
been properly done in the summer. 
Great attention is paid to the arrangements for folding sh3ep. 
VOL. v.— S. S. 2 I 
