312 Report on the Field and Feeding Experiments at Wohurn. 
is well-known to be a food possessing a high feeding-value when 
arrived at perfection, that is, the period when it has just done 
flowering, and the seed has begun to set in the flowering-heads. 
The sheep were clipped on the 16th of June : — 
The ten sheep on plot 1 produced 65^ lbs. of wool, and made 
a total increase of 1 cwt. 1 qr. 21 \ lbs. 
The ten sheep on plot 2 produced 69 lbs. of wool, and made a 
total increase of 1 cwt. 2 qrs. \ lb. 
The ten sheep on plot 3 produced 68 lbs. of wool, and made 
a total increase of 1 cwt. 2 qrs. 25 j lbs. 
The ten sheep on plot 4 produced 67^ lbs. of wool, and made 
a total increase of 1 cwt. 2 qrs. 26^ lbs. 
In feeding down the clover each lot often sheep was confined 
within hurdles, in pens affording a day's supply of green food. 
By shifting the hurdles daily, loss of food by trampling was 
avoided as much as possible. 
By the 1st of July the sheep had gone once over the clover. 
They were then weighed, with the following results : — 
Increase or decrease 
in Live-weight 
since June 16, 1881. 
PtOTS. lbs. 
jFed-off by 10 sheep, eating about 2 lb. of cotton-) 
\ cake ; on land 38 days ) * 
2 JFed-off by 10 sheep, eating about h lb. of maize-) 
* ( meal ; on land 38 days J 
o jFed-off by 10 sheep, without other food; on land) 
^- \ 38 days \ ~ 
. (Fed-ofF by 10 sheep, without other food; on land) oa 
*• I 38 days J 
During the first twenty-four days the sheep fed upon clover 
alone increased more in weight than the pens which received 
cotton-cake or maize-meal. In the next fortnight, on the con- 
trary, the sheep having as additional food decorticated cotton- 
cake did best ; next came those fed upon maize. Both these 
pens increased considerably in weight between June 16th and 
July 1st, whilst the sheep on plot 3, fed without additional 
food, in the same period lost 14 lbs., and those on plot 4, also 
fed on clover only, lost 3 J lbs. The explanation of these dif- 
ferences in the increase of the sheep is, that as the season 
advanced, the clover got rather hard, and a good deal was not 
properly cleared up, but was trodden under foot by the sheep, 
so that the sheep on plot 1, which received about Ih lb. each 
of decorticated cotton-cake, and those on plot 2, which had 
given them about ^ lb. of maize-meal, showed the benefit of 
the additional food. 
The sheep were put again on the clover on the 2nd of July, 
