V 
432 Farmiufj of Dorsetshire. 
the greater portion of them are sent alive to the London market. 
Wlien about three Aveeks old they are put up, and their dams 
brouglit in twice or thrice a day to suckle them. With this 
treatment, and with corn and cake, they will get up to 12 lbs. or 
14 lbs. a quarter in four months, for the horned ewes add to their 
other maternal qualities those of excellent nurses. 
The losses by lambing are sometimes considerable. A farmer 
who lambs 500 down ewes in the chalk district, says, " Some- 
times I have lambed my flock without the loss of a single ewe, ^ 
and another year I have lost 50." Mr. Pope last year lost 100 
«wes and 300 lambs out of a flock of 800, and attriljutes his loss 
entirely to the constant use of turnips, upon which the ewes 
were kept entirely before lambing. In the hill country sheds at 
lambing time are advocated ; in more genial localities they tire 
decried. Mr. T. H. Saunders has a useful contrivance, which 
would reconcile both parties — a little thatch between a couple 
of hurdles, half roofed — an open shed, in short, which, whilst 
guarding the young lambs from the cold blasts, allows of the free 
•circulation of fresh air throughout the fold. Tliese sheds are 
very easily made, and with a piece of dry pasture before them 
they have been found very successful. 
A remarkable feature peculiar to J)orsetshire is the ewe leazes 
■of the hill-farms, as distinguished from the general run of the 
down pastures of inferior equality, which, although devoted to 
sheep pasturage as well, serve for the rising recruit of the ewe 
flock, and are commonly distinguished by the term " hog leazes," 
being fed chiefly by the yearling or hog sheep, called in other 
counties tegs. 
On the chalk hills every acre of arable is considered to keep a 
breeding ewe. The sale ewes, hogs, and lambs at certain times 
make up 2^ sheep an acre. 
" Dorset," says a large wool-broker, " has long been consi- 
dered among our foremost counties in growing wool, and the 
down sheep are there thought to have increased 30 per cent, in 
number, and the fleece ^ lb., while tlie old Dorset horned breed 
found in distant parts of the county, and feeding on pasture- 
lands, have only increased from 15 to 20 per cent, in number, 
and their fleece ^ lb. Within 40 years the total increase in 
flocks is reported to have been equal to 100 jier cent., and the 
weight of the down fleece on all liglit arable soils full Ijlbs., say 
from 2i lbs. toS jlbs. On all dry soils the Dorset breed has 
been supplanted by the downs, as the farmers are thus enabled 
to keep a larger and more profitable kind of stock." The in- 
crease in the fleece here spoken of is the index of the im})rove- 
ment that has been effected in the jieriod named in the sheep 
husbandry of the county. The general effect of high breeding 
