90 
Exmoor Reclamation. 
land sheep, placed on the Chains, as the highest and most 
exposed part of Exmoor is called ; the others are Cheviots, 
whose merit as producers of wool, mutton, and lamb, in districts 
where Down sheep could not exist, have long been established. 
The permanent flocks consist entirely of ewes, which are kept 
until they are five years old, then fatted and sent to market 
with half-bred lambs — generally got by a Shropshire Down or 
Leicester ram. From 5000 ewes, including yearlings, about 
4000 lambs are reared. Those intended to keep up the stock 
are the produce of pure-bred Cheviot rams, some of which are 
usually purchased every third year in Scotland. Shropshire 
Down rams have not only the credit of being sure lamb-getters, 
but are a favourite cross with the butcher. 
With the Cheviot flocks and Scotch shepherds have been 
introduced mowing and haymaking machines, which are of the 
greatest possible value in a district where the supply of grass is 
almost unlimited, where labour is scarce, and the days and hours 
when haymaking is possible are few and uncertain. With the aid 
of this machinery, a large quantity of the wild natural forest grass 
is turned into hay, not of a very fine or very nutritious quality, 
but good enough to keep the ewes or any rough stock alive in 
hard winters, for mountain sheep will eat and thrive where more 
luxurious breeds would starve. This hay is stacked and carried 
to what the Scotch shepherds call " Stclls" for the use of the 
flocks in hard winters. 
All the forest grass not cut is, after the custom of all Scotch 
sheep-farmers, periodically burned down. 
In very hard winters, a few locust-beans are added to the forest 
hay — this being the most convenient purchased food, because it 
requires no preparation ; and the Hill sheep eat it without any 
hesitation on the first time of asking. 
These Scotch sheep, being much more hardy than the native 
breeds, find a living on the moor in all weathers ex'cept in 
snow-storms, which are very rare on Exmoor as compared with 
the North of England. About Midsummer, the rape crop 
comes into use in time for the draft ewes and the lambs, which 
fall late on Exmoor, and it lasts until killed off by frost about 
November. 
On this rape, alternated with grass, the sheep and lambs are 
fattened without roots, corn, or cake, and are sent off to be sold, 
alive or dead, according to the state of the market, between 
August and November. In November the whole of the draft 
stock is expected to be sold out. 
The lambs, except those purchased on the spot by butchers or 
jobbers, who travel to Simon's Bath for the purpose, are driven 
by road to South Molton ; there they are killed, cooled, and the 
t 
