3G0 
Experiments in Sheep Feeding. 
All the sheep received alike i a lb. of oilcake per day during 
the winter feeding, with this exception, that the Lincolns during 
42 days received an extra ^ lb. ; but this addition is charged 
to their debit in the tabular statement, as are the varying 
weights of turnips consumed by the several lots. The whole of 
the sheep were sold on the same day in Leeds Market, and the 
prices obtained fairly represent the state of fatness of the animals 
and the worth of their flesh. 
Remarks on the above Experiment. 
Mr. Fox, the President of the Parlington Club, to whom I 
am indebted for the preceding Report, has obligingly cx])lained 
to me the basis on which the increase of meat and wool has 
been estimated in it. 
The carcase weight and the live weight being ascertained at 
the time of sale, it was assumed that these bore the same pro- 
portion the one to the other as the increase in the carcase weight 
bore to the increase in the live weight, or in other words that as 
great a proportion of the live animal was salealjle carcase at the 
beginning as at the end of the experiment. This assumption is 
evidently unfavourable, and probably not strictly correct ; conse- 
quently the general economical results were really better than 
they are here represented ; but it is not easy to put this statement 
into a more exact form, and the error, if any, affects all the lots 
nearly in the same manner. 
It would seem that the proportion of meat to live weight at 
ihe time of sale was as follows : — 
Lot 1. Teeswater .. 
„ 2. North slieop 
3. Lincohis .. 
„ 4. South Downs 
,, 5. Shropshire. 
,, G. Leicesters .. 
,, 7. Cotswolds .. 
It is not improbable that in the previous November this ratio 
did not range much above 56 per cent. Greater precision, how- 
ever, on this point could not have been obtained without slaughter- 
ing one or two average sheep out of each lot in November. 
Any comparison between different breeds of sheep, to be 
complete, must be tested at different ages, and include every 
season of the year ; for the more sensitive race loses ground 
on the approach of autumnal cold and Wet, and when advancing 
by rapid strides in more genial weather, is in part only reco- 
vering that lost ground. The increase in the wool was thus esti- 
mated : when the sheep were killed, 300 days had elapsed since 
they were shorn ; 100 of these had fallen within the period of 
the experiment ; which therefore had credit for one-third of the 
62 per cent. 
64-2 „ 
(]->-0 
66-9 
62-1 
C(i-1 „ 
62-1 „ 
