62 The Early flattening of Cuttle and Sheep. 
It seems unnecessary to multiply examples of early fatten- 
ing, but I should like to call attention to the fact that several 
of my informants claim a gain of weight for young bullocks, 
averaging 8 lb. per week from birth to the age of eighteen 
months. In some cases, as reported in my former article, the 
gain appears to have been as great as that of the youug bullocks, 
"not exceeding two years old,'' exhibited at Islington last 
December, 9 T \,- lb. per week. It appears that the ordinary 
feeder, having good-sized and well-bred animals to deal with, 
may vie with the experts who prepare animals for the Shows. 
Feeding with maximum results is, in fact, easier and less waste- 
ful in the case of young animals than of old ones. 
The early fattening of sheep has become part of the custom- 
ary system of management in Hampshire. The breeding-farms 
have ceased to be breeding-farms exclusively. The great fairs 
at which lambs were disposed of as stores in the summer to pur- 
chasers from other counties, have to a great extent gone out of 
fashion, and the old system has been replaced by the modern 
plan of fattening the wether lambs at home and sending them 
to the auction marts or the fairs which are now attended by 
butchers from London and elsewhere. 
A visit to the farm of one of the most successful breeders 
and feeders in Hampshire, Mr. John Barton, Hackwood Farm, 
Basingstoke, enables me to describe the method of feeding which 
has now become characteristic of a Hampshire sheep-farm. 
The farm of 600 acres rests on the Chalk, the land being light 
and full of flints. Probably one reason why heavy folding does 
not taint the soil is its rapid absorption of the dressings. There 
are 445 breeding ewes on the farm, or 75 ewes per 100 acres, 
with their progeny. The lambs fall in January and February, 
and the average crop is about 100 reared lambs per 100 
ewes. On September 1, the whole of the sheep, except the 
rams, were folded on rape in three flocks, including 173 ewe 
lambs, 130 shorn wether lambs fattening for the butcher,' and 
445 ewes following the others and clearing up behind them. 
The wether lambs received 1 lb. each of mixed cake and corn, 
and many of them were already fit for the butcher ; but with 40 
acres of rape and turnips in front of the sheep, to be followed by 
wheat, and therefore to be folded by Christmas, it was neces- 
sary to keep on the lambs for the purpose of eating up the food. 
The lambs were at that date seven months old and many of them 
would have weighed 10 stone. The whole flock would average 
probably rather more than 10 stone when finished at less than 
a year old. 
The usual breadths of grain crops on the farm are 130 acres 
