The Past Agricultural Year. 
225 
present only in few instances ; and the death-rate of the latter has been much 
the greater of the two in the same circumstances. Half-bred and Cheviot 
ewe-flocks, from which are bred the half-bred stock, being crossed by Leicester 
tups, occupy the lowlands and arable gromid, and are chiefly confined to 
Caithness. All stock-owners have lost above an average, but no season has 
shown greater divergences from usual averages. For instance, the west coast 
of Sutherland has got off comparatively safely in comparison with the middle 
district, removed alike from sea and rail. The latter suffered, owing to the 
impossibility of bringing extra keep to the hirsels, or the hirsels to where it 
could be ]irovided. The east coast comes next, where the long-continued 
north and east winds during spring put a finish upon the damage caused 
by the severity of the winter, reducing the stock the third time, by the 
blighting of vegetation almost to starvation-point, and causing a deal of loss 
amongst lambing ewes. The loss amongst the old sheep has run from 7i 
per cent., under the most favourable circumstances, to 20 per cent., or even 
more in the worst cases. We may therefore conclude that about 12 per 
cent, may possibly be regarded as a fair average. Lambs again will run from 
two-thirds in the west and most favoured places, to one-fourth or less in many 
instances of the annual average ; and they are all bad alike and of little value. 
In instances known to me, tenants instead of selling cast ewes have had to 
buy to make up stock. In others, after spending hundreds of pounds in extra 
keep, the shott lambs have been simply useless and worthless. In fact, a produce 
of one-half is counted something out of the common in the middle and east 
coast districts. Few old sheep, where hand-fed, died before the 1st of April, 
and with good weather they might have struggled through ; but April and 
May killed them in myriads, there being little or no grass, and the sheep 
having been all to a great extent removed to their summer quarters, owing to 
a delusive fresh and warmth setting in about that time, which was followed 
by a period of the most bitter cold weather we have ever experienced. The 
truth of the matter is — most stockowners lost heart and just left them to Pro- 
vidence, as they could do no more for them except taking them down to be 
hand-fed again. This they were pretty sick of, and always were in the hope 
of things getting better, so lost thereby all their extra keep and sheep like- 
wise. In Koss and Inverness the storms of winter did not do much harm ; 
but the spring destroyed numbers, and the losses are not much less than 
those of Sutherland, only flockmasters there mostly saved the great expense 
of extra feeding. Extra feeding on farms which fed straight through would 
amount to from 5s. to 16s. each sheep. In addition to direct costs and losses, 
flocks have deteriorated. Lambs are very bad, owing to the poverty of the 
ewes when with young, the food not being sufficient to sustain life and fully to 
develop the foetus ; and when the young were dropped, the supply of milk, for 
the same reason, was scanty, so the lambs are badly thriven, scraggy and 
pot-bellied. The ewes, instead of producing milk when a flush of keep was to 
•be had, laid it on as fat, so in many instances they got in fair order, and 
no doubt will get over the great privation they underwent. Counting the 
fall in value of stock, and the low state of the wool-market, many large 
holders have lost a fortune, and that not a small one. Yet all these experiences 
are not without a lesson, and I will, in conclusion, point out a few things that 
in my judgment have intensified this state of matters. In the first place, 
owing to many previous seasons being open and mild, flockmasters never 
provided any keep for such emergencies as storms ; and instead of cutting the 
haughs and other places where good meadow hay might be made, they pastured 
them ; the high prices of stock and wool inducing them to increase the 
number of the stock to more than the ground could carry. As a result of 
this procedure, the one-year-old sheep, or hoggs, have been wintered in the low 
country (arable ground in Ross-shire and Caithness) upon turnip, and this has 
VOL. XVI. — S. S. Q 
