The Sheep Stock of Gloucestershire. 47 
the butcher in October, when they weigh between seventy 
and eighty pounds dressed carcass. 
If tatting sheep are kept until the spring and shorn, on 
the Cotswold Hills they are usually folded on turnips or 
swedes, getting hay and as lambs a quarter of a pound of 
concentrated food and gradually working up to a pound each 
before being sold fat after shearing in the spring. Farmers 
find it an enormous advantage in these times, when economy 
has to be considered so minutely, to be able to make their 
sheep ample weights while allowing the feeding animal to 
gnaw the roots on the ground and so dispense with the 
additional cost of cleaning and slicing or grinding. Ram 
lambs to be sold in August and September must never have 
a bad day, and their capacity for eating cake and corn is 
enormous, two pounds each before they are sold being no 
extraordinary ration. Those sold as shearling rams seldom 
exceed this quantity — a plentiful supply of vetches and 
cabbage in addition being given. 
As to whether sheep should, or should not, be washed 
before shearing appears to me an open question. 
Breeders of great experience and keen perception cannot 
speak with any degree of certainty as to the monetary 
comparison between the two systems. Personally, I do not 
wash, although my sheep are largely on arable land. 
Sheep often receive rough treatment at the washing pool 
and bad effects follow, counterbalancing any increased value 
I to the wool that may accrue from the washing. 
Sales. 
As regards amounts realised by the sale of sheep of this 
breed, Mr. R. L. Angas, writing in 1906 on the Agriculture 
of Oxfordshire, quotes the following prices for lambs born 
early in the year 1904 and sold for mutton the following 
October, November, and December at Oxford, Woodstock, and 
Thame, namely, 66s. 6e/., 63s., and 71s. 6d. respectively, and 
in 1905 70s. and 78s. These figures can be authenticated. 
When dispersed, Mr. Worley’s flock of ewes made 4/. 
17s. 5 d. a head in 1906. In the same year the highest average 
for shearling rams at Oxford Fair was 12 1. 18s. for 28 sheep ; 
at Cirencester August Fair, 1906, 55 rams averaged 16/. 17s. 9d. ; 
and at Kelso 10 rams averaged 18/. At the Oxford Fair, 1906, 
56 ram lambs averaged 11/. 13s. 8 d . ; and at Cirencester Fair 
10 ram lambs averaged 9/. 14s. Id. 
In 1907 : Cirencester August Fair, 56 shearlings averaged 
14/. Is. Id. 
Winchendon Sale : 59 shearlings averaged 22/. 17s. 0 d.. 
highest price 157/. 10s. 0 d. 
