482 Suggestions for Stocl-, -feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 
and afterwards the ewes, these making a few shillings per head 
beyond the price I paid for them as stores, in addition to the 
clip of wool. This would seem to leave a fair living profit, but 
the drought, by diminishing our corn crops (grown where the 
sheep had fed the roots with corn and cake) one-half, leaves the 
balance on the wrong side. My system is to buy in a fresh 
full-mouthed ewe flock each year, saving my own ram lambs 
from the previous year’s flock, thus getting fresh blood, and 
fattening ewes and lambs together. I have this season 640 
ewes bought in at an average of 30s. per head ; these were all, 
I hope, safely in lamb by the end of August, and ought, with 
ordinary luck, to pay for wintering. 
I would like here to mention that, when the frost last spring 
broke up, our turnips had nearly all rotted, and a large proportion 
of our swedes also, consequently during the last month they 
were on them our ewes and lambs made no progress, looking 
sticky in their coats, and losing their bloom entirely. Fortu- 
nately we had 30 acres of common rape sown very late ; this 
had withstood the frost bravely, and, when our ewes and lambs 
went on to this after the old rotten roots, the change was quite 
marvellous. They soon regained a thriving appearance, and we 
were enabled to keep them going till the end. Our shepherd, 
a man of long experience with a breeding flock, said he had 
never seen anything so marked, and was most anxious we 
should always have 30 to 50 acres each spring. We are now 
sowing in every available field common rape, and thousand- 
headed kale, for spring feeding. Our early-sown rape and 
turnips will be ready to feed off with the dry flock by the 
second week in September, and this, witli 1 lb. linseed cake and 
a few split beans per head daily, will make the sheep fit for 
the butcher by the time the warm weather goes, and Down 
mutton is inquired for. 
With a herd of about twenty milking cows, Shorthorns and 
Channel Islands mixed, the yield of butter, of rare colour and 
quality, from our poor pastures, all through the long dry time, 
has been very remarkable, the separator giving off a large per- 
centage of cream. We calve our cows at all times in the year, 
in order to keep up a supply of rich milk. The cows when 
brought in to be milked in the morning have 4 lb. each of 
linseed cake in the stalls, in addition to the grass they get in 
the pastures. The best milker in the herd is a little cross- 
bred cow, got, I should think, by a common Shorthorn bull- 
out of a very ordinary Channel Islands cow. She calved on 
April 15 last, rather fresh in condition, and weighed 8| cwt., 
worth at that time on the market about 14Z. She has given 
