278 
Agriculture of Hertfordshire. 
Though neither the breeding nor the fattening of sheep is 
carried out to a large extent, most of the better farms have a flock 
of ewes, generally Hants Downs. The Coltswold tup is most 
in favour ; Leicesters and Lincolns are also used. The ewes 
are folded on turnips, with some dry food, such as malt-combs, 
with straw-chaff, or trefoil "stover ;" (i. e. the straw after thrashing 
the seed). 
The lambs are dropped between the middle of January and 
the middle of February. After lambing, .the best managers give 
the ewes a little oil-cake or a few oats ; neither beans nor cotton- 
cake are liked for suckling-ewes. Most farmers now grow some 
mangold, to be given to the ewes with dry food on the young 
clovers. Lambs are weaned early in July, and are well kept on 
the mixed clovers and on sainfoin, wintered on roots, and sold fat 
after being shorn. They get cake or corn early in autumn, or 
sometimes from weaning time. The half-bred lamb will, with 
such treatment, weigh 10 to 11 stones at 15 months old, and 
will sell for 60s., paying Is. a week from birth. Such early 
feeding with corn should, however, never be commenced unless 
it can be steadily maintained, with a due admixture of green and 
dry food. The value of the purchased food is sacrificed by any 
check. 
The ewes are usually fattened ; and this is generally desirable, 
because an old Hampshire crone, which cost from 40s. to 44s., is 
worth when poor after shearing only 25s. to 28s. If fattened 
after weaning-time, they are put on the freshest after-crop of 
clover and sainfoin, with a pint of beans daily, or 1 lb. of cake, 
and finished off on rape or early turnips. Of late years, the high 
price of old ewes and the danger of bringing the foot-complaint 
into the farm has led to the purchase of younger sheep, which 
are kept several years. 
The half-bred ewe lambs are sometimes drafted into the ewe 
flock, and are either coupled with a long-woolled ram, or a west 
county Down. The excellent constitution and general good cha- 
racter of the half-bred ewe is an inducement to adopt this practice, 
which, however, requires caution. A lamb, mongrel to the 
third generation, must have been bred under the auspices of a very 
skilful breeder if he be not a worse animal than one of the first 
cross. Such stock often make bold-looking, well-sized lambs ; 
but in the spring they prove more scanty in their proportions, 
longer in the leg, and lighter both in wool and carcass than 
better bred tegs. 
Fallow Crops. — The tillage here given differs from that of the 
light lands by two additional cross ploughings in spring, and the 
use of the broad share on a stale furrow, just before drilling, 
which is done from the middle of May to the middle of June. 
