On iho Vahie of the Oil In Linseed-calce as a Food for Stocli. 417 
machines, and caunot, therefore, be predicted for witli me- 
chanical certainty. By ages of inurement sheep have become 
very hardy animals, till they enjoy almost any amount of cold, if 
only they can have dry backs. They revel also in ample space 
for movement, as the nearest imitation of their free hill life. 
Less natural conditions, therefore, may have so affected the 
health and condition of the Rothamsted sheep as to more than 
counterbalance their apparent theoretical advantages. 
Leaving now the more strictly scientific aspect of the experi- 
ments, it may be well to consider them very briefly from — popu- 
larly speaking — a more practical point of view. For in the way 
of direct and easily accessible lesson to the farmer they should 
surely be very valuable and instructive. 
At the conclusion of the experiments, and in order to check 
or confirm the record of the weigh-bridge, it was thought desir- 
able to take the opinions of competent outsiders, so far as ob- 
servation and experience could guide them, upon the difference 
in appearance and in touch between the two lots of sheep. This 
course was the more desirable from the well-known fact that 
practical farmers habitually place more reliance upon the judg- 
ment of those accustomed to handle stock, and estimate them 
by the eye, than upon any decision of the scales. Moreover, 
even the strongest advocates of the weighing test acknowledge 
freely that its chief value is to assist the hand and eye. Two, 
thei'efore, of the best and best known farmers in Norfolk, having 
exceptional knowledge of all kinds of stock, both store and fat, 
together with a large farmer and dealer who has had much 
experience also in the business of butcher, were invited to 
inspect all the experimental sheep. Before the arrival of the 
trio of referees there had been selected from each pen of thirty 
sheep six of the most equal and average weight, which were 
separately penned at a distance from the rest. After these 
twelve sheep had been duly and minutely examined the remain- 
ing twenty-four of each lot were penned closer in their own 
folds and separately inspected. 
The practical experts, who of course were not afforded the 
slightest clue to the identity of the sheep, nor informed of the 
treatment of any of them, were then invited to decide upon the 
difference, if any, between the two pens of six, and the two of 
twenty-four sheep, and to report in detail upon any variations. 
They were entirely unanimous in all the opinions expressed in 
their report, the details of \vhich are as follows : — The sheep 
fed with the more oily food were declared to have made more 
groNvth, as well as more flesh, than the others. They had 
"dropped" more in carcase, the other lot being "straighter" 
