Breeding, Feeding, and Rearing Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 21 
form, the price ranged from Is. to Is. 8d., and in May and June of last year 
the price has not been lower than Is., and is now Is. 10c?. per lb. The difficulty 
in breeding stock here is very much a question of labour. Farms are larger than 
they were, and farmers' wives and daughters do not take the same personal 
interest in rearing stock which their predecessors did twenty-five or thirty 
years ago. It is now most difficult to get women to milk, and, indeed, it is 
Eot an easy task to get either good shepherds or cowmen ; and this fact alone 
has had much to do with the preference for buying in stock instead of rearing 
it upon the farm. Perhaps, also, the increased severity of foot-and-mouth 
disease as affecting pregnant or milking-cows may have had its influence in 
leading farmers to prefer feeding bullocks. 
A considerable number of sheep are bred and fed off. It is a common 
custom to buy North-country ewes from the border, to take one crop of lambs, 
and have the hoggets fat after clipping time. Some very good farmers buy 
elder sheep either about May or June for their clovers, or about September 
for turnips. Tiiey are rather better able to stand bad weather on some of the 
stronger land ; and they get fat, and are cleared off somewhat earlier in the spring 
than lambs, enabling the farmer to get a better tilth on his strong land, and 
so insure a crop of barley ; as a portion of our land, although growing good 
crops of turnips, is apt to be sticky and dirty when trampled by sheep 
in bad weather. 
The price of such lean sheep has nearly doubled in the last twenty-five 
years. North-country lambs were bought at St. Boswell's Fair from 20s. to 
25s. each at that time, and lambs of similar quality this year are worth 21. 
each. Shearling wethers have risen in the same proportion. 
The very few horses which are bred in this neighbourhood are generally for 
agricultural purposes, and at the present price of beef and mutton few of our 
farmers would be tempted to run the risk of breeding carriage-horses and 
hunters. 
My o^vn opinion would have been that our farmers might do better by 
breeding more stock, and then feeding them high and getting them off as two- 
year-olds ; but most of our best practical men adopt the system which I have 
endeavoured to sketch. One of my neighbours has just finished buying his 
autumn lot of Irish bullocks, which have averaged rather over 121. each for 
nearly 70; another has bought about 90 at something like dl. each. The 
bigger ones will get straw at night in the fold, turnips on the grass in the day- 
time, and in the spring some cake, and i^robably some more cake in early 
summer on the grass. A large number of the smaller-sized lot will very 
likely have nothing but grass, unless the winter be severe, and then they will 
kave straw brought to them in their pasture. 
John Dent Dent. 
10. Kerchesters, Kelso. 
Considering the high price of horses, cattle, and sheep, the British farmers 
could largely increase the breeding of all the above classes of stock. The 
increase might be at a much greater ratio if the tenant-farmer had more 
security for his capital than under present circumstances. 
On arable farms, where the land is high-rented, other kinds of stock give 
more return than horses. It is very difBcult to get mares to breed, on account 
of the high feeding they receive and the fast pace at which they are driven in 
the border district. Small farmers, with grass land at a moderate rent, along 
with their nersonal care and superintendence, can rear horses with considerable 
profit. The more extensive farmers will be obliged to pay more attention to 
