242 
On the Feeding of Stock. 
sometimes not the most inclined to publish the results of their 
experience. 
Enough has been said regarding the breed of sheep experi- 
mented on to show how the animal may have influenced the 
feeding results. If these results are deemed satisfactory, the 
sheep may gain some credit as rent-paying stock ; but if the 
latter are held to be decidedly of no merit, how much greater 
profits might have been attained by animals of really good 
quality ? Let us, then, first examine one or two experiments in 
sheep feeding, to contrast with those in bullock feeding, given 
in its earlier pages, before we proceed to the general balance- 
sheet of the year for the breeding and grazing flocks. These 
experiments had a special design when recorded besides that of 
showing a profit : they may now serve a double purpose. 
The first experiment stated will go back to the year 1853, a 
date antecedent to the great impulse given to agricultural and 
other prices : it stands recorded at thje " time's prices," which 
have been left unaltered. Its immediate object was to test the 
comparative fattening qualities of rape and of linseed cake. 
Two lots of black-faced hoggetts, consisting of 10 each, were 
placed in adjoining pens, partly under a shed and partly extend- 
ing into an open yard beyond, on the 15th of February. 
Both lots received as much of sliced swedes as they would 
eat (they eat 15 or 16 lbs. per head a day), but the first lot had in 
addition 7 lbs. a day of rape-cake, the sipcond 7 lbs. of linseed- 
cake. 
They were weighed on the 18th of February when they came 
into the pen, and again on the 25th of March, when those on rape- 
cake were found to have gained 61 lbs. ; those on linseed 85 lbs. 
As the weather became warmer, it was so evident that the 
hoggets on rape-cake were not thriving, that, on the 22nd of 
March, their food was changed, and they were again weighed, 
and showed a gain on the aggregate of the ten of 5 lbs. since the 
last weighing, but 3 of the best sheep had lost weight. These 
were now put on to linseed like the others, and were again 
weighed with the other lot on the 12th of April, when they were 
found to have gained 90 lbs. in 3 weeks since their change of 
diet, whilst the other lot had gained 91 lbs. in the course of the 
second month. 
It thus appeared that, allowing for the difference of price 
between rape and linseed cakes, the linseed hoggets answered 
the best even during the first month ; whilst there were strong 
indications that if the experiment had been persisted in, the wool 
would have been sacrificed and but little flesh gained, from .the 
heating nature of the rape, which the sheep at last would not 
eat up clean. 
