Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 105 
especially if the soil is light and the climate dry, are quicker, 
and frequently also greater than from cattle. On all these 
points sheep have the preference ; but where cattle management 
is properly attended to, the profits compare not unfavourably 
with those from a sheep stock. It need not surprise any one 
that sheep are regarded as the better paying stock in different 
parts of England ; for while cattle are subsisting on the pastures 
in winter, with a little hay or straw in severe weather, sheep are 
feeding on turnips, hay, corn, and cake. Cattle have not thus 
the same chance of paying the feeder that sheep have. Through- 
out the Midland counties of England sheep consume the first, 
the best, and the most of the root-crops. In the south-east of 
Scotland, also, the fleecy flocks generally have the choicest of the 
farm produce. If that did not make them pay, what would ? 
It is decidedly preferable to fatten as well as breed sheep on 
the same holding. That, however, requires not merely a con- 
siderable extent of land, but a variety of it — some light moorish 
outlying ground and some good rich feeding, well drained, 
arable land. This combination is not general, and so there are 
many holdings devoted almost exclusively to breeding, and not 
a few also to feeding. Cattle will thrive in almost any kind of 
climate, but sheep require a pretty dry climate and well drained 
land. Excepting the mountain breeds, sheep are not profitable 
stock in a moist climate ; foot-rot being destructive there. The 
best feeding districts are the Eastern and Midland counties 
of England and the south-east of Scotland, while the great breed- 
ing ranges are in the west and north of England and the west 
and north of Scotland. Of course, the mountain grazings are 
almost exclusively stocked with breeding sheep or lean growing 
wether flocks. Here fattening is out of the question, and even 
on the higher and more exposed arable farms feeding cannot be 
economically adopted. Mr. Tweedie, Castle Crawford, an ex- 
tensive and experienced Lanarkshire farmer, informs me that he 
has fed on the turnip break a lot of the best Black-faced wethers 
he could get in the Falkirk market. Notwithstanding the 
hardiness of this breed, he found from the altitude (900 feet) 
and exposure of his farm, the feeding process was so slow that 
he had nothing except the manure for the turnips eaten. The 
excess of the selling price over the buying covered only the out- 
lay for cake and corn. It is thus evident that the fattening of 
sheep in winter should only be attempted by the occupiers of 
tolerably well-sheltered dry land in a good climate. Sheep can 
be bred and reared on high, dry, light land, whether arable or 
not, more profitably than on dearer and better soil. The owners 
of a breeding-flock on cheaply rented dry farms have had a 
better time of it since 1865 than other farmers. This year 
