Report on the Agriculture of Belgium. 
G3 
2. Ordinarg Shccp-brecding. — The sheep usually kept are the 
original Flemish, because they are great wool-growers. We 
were not favourably impressed by the breed in any one respect, 
although they appear to yield a great weight of wool. Otherwise 
they possess most of the characteristics which English farmers dis- 
like. At first we regarded their defects as inherent — defects which 
a naturalist would consider diagnostic of the species. But, after 
a while, we began to doubt whether the poor sheep were not 
more sinned against than sinning. Certainly the system pursued 
by the majority of Polder flockmasters would soon ruin even the 
best breed in England. To give our report the stamp of reality, 
therefore, we will describe a particular example, just as we had 
it from the farmer ; merely premising that our note-book contains 
several parallel cases, and that the one we have selected is a type 
of the system puisued in the district. 
Our example farmer had about 110 acres of land, 25 of which 
were in pasture. His course consisted of barley, beans, wheat, 
beans, wheat, oats, and fallow. He had, at the time of our visit, 
8 cows, 5 heifers, 5 calves, 2 bulls, and 105 sheep. His flock 
consisted of 47 breeding ewes (which had yielded 48 lambs) and 
21 shearlings ; but 11 lambs had been sold, so that 105 sheep, 
all told, were on the farm when we saw it. All the gimmers, 
except any remarkably small ones, were incorporated into the 
breeding flock, so that he rarely had more than 10 three-shear 
ewes. The ewes are put to the ram in the beginning of August, 
picking up what they can get on the grass margins of the roads 
by day ; at night they go on to a stubble near the farmhouse, 
where the shepherd (who never leaves them) makes a hut for 
himself. This treatment continues until the middle of October 
or beginning of November, according to the weather, Avhen their 
night-quarters are the " sheep-house " (bergerie). During the 
day they pick up what they can get on the road-sides and pas- 
tures ; but before they go out they get some bean-straw, about 
8 o'clock in the morning ; and when they return in the evening 
they get beans and straw together (unthreshed). When lambing, 
they get a little rape-cake, 7 lbs. being considered sufficient for 
the whole flock of 47 breeding ewes ; and this allowance is con- 
tinued for three months. The lambs are turned into the yard of 
the bergerie every day when old enough, and given a few crushed 
oats. The lambs are never weaned,* but run with the ewes 
and rams by day all through the autumn, being separated only 
by night when the ewes lose their milk. The oldest ewes are 
sold lean, as many as there are gimmers to supply their places. 
* We saw lambs suckling in September, more than a month after the ewes, as 
we were told, had been put to the ram. 
