Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 15 
As regards sheep, I get by the white-faced and long-woolled Lincoln or 
Cotswold ram, and the dark-faced short-wooUed ewes, a lamb with shaded- 
face, giving both wool, and lean and fat meat. White-faced mutton is not liked 
by our butchers. I have a most decided objection to exposing hairy animals 
during the inclement months ; they should always have access to comfortable 
shelter. Even with sheep, shelter during very severe weather is desirable. I 
find that oxxr old, worn-out, scraggy ewes fatten well in covered and enclosed 
sheds with paved floors, their food being mixed and prepared. 
I have no experience in horse-breeding, but, from observation, I consider 
that their very activity renders them more liable to accident than cattle. 
But the same principles of proper food and shelter apply to them as to cattle. 
Breeding-ewes require a great variety of suitable food to form their progeny 
before parturition, and a certain amount of liberty for exercise is advants^eous 
to them, as well as to cows and mares. 
Building up an animal is like building a house ; there must be a variety 
of materials — such as a good pasture furnishes. Parentage has much to do 
with profit. It is a great mistake to breed from inferior parents to save a few 
shillings — especially on the male side ; I have seen too much false economy in 
this respect. 
J. J. Mechi. 
4. "Wallstown Castle, Shanballtmore, Mallow, Ieeland. 
I think breeding of horses, cattle, and sheep might be extended with 
advantage. 
On purely tillage farms, or where a regular rotation of cropping is carried 
out, or where from circumstances a fixed minimum munber of horses are 
engaged to do the requisite work, breeding-mares, as a matter of course, cannot 
do the constant work of geldings or barren mares. Where breeding is to be 
carried out an extra number of horses must therefore be kept. On farms 
where a large portion is under grass the busy times will only occur at seasons 
when the breeding-mares can be spared. By having an extra strength of 
horse-power the crops can be got in quickly in spring, and before the mares 
foaU The summer-work can then be got through by the other horses on 
the farm. As a regular course of cropping, as a rule, is not carried out in 
Ireland, the small farmers could ^vith advantage put one of their mares to 
breed. 
When the greater part of the farm is imder the plough, and when the 
dairy would not be profitable, or where the pasturage is sufficiently rich to 
fatten the cattle grazed thereon, I consider it more economical to buy store 
stock than to breed them. In all other cases I would be in favour of home- 
breeding. 
As to sheep, when the pasture is well adapted for fattening, or when, as in 
the case of piurely tillage farms, or on clay farms, and land liable to be winter- 
flooded, buying stores would be more advantageous than breeding. 
I have never known breeding horses on a large scale to be profitable, nor, 
indeed, the keeping of breeding mares for breeding purposes alone ; but a mare, 
or two or three in proportion to the size of the farm, taking a turn at the 
plough, and carting in the busy season, is very profitable. Good mares 
of this class often bring in from iOl. to 801. for three-year-olds off the grass. 
If breeding is to be adopted on a large scale it would necessitate considerable 
outlay in the way of paddocks and stabling. A large number of colts kept 
together would, in their frolics, cut up and destroy the pastures. Nor can 
they be driven together and housed with the same safety as cattle. Hacks 
and agricultural horses are in proportionately far better demand now than 
