26 The Agriculture of the Cotswolds. 
head of live stock can be maintained by adopting this 
modification, which provides summer keep for ewes and lambs 
after the turnips are finished. . 
The necessity of continually consolidating this loose porous 
soil has already been emphasised, and this is well and 
economically done by the sheepfold, without which it would 
be impossible to produce the corn crops, from which a large 
proportion of the receipts from a Cotswold farm are derived. 
All the wether lambs and the ewe lambs not required for 
maintaining the breeding flock are therefore fed on the roots 
through the winter, having cake, corn and hay, and are brought 
out as mutton at from ten to fifteen months old. 
In the neighbouring county of Wilts it is customary to keep 
a larger flock of ewes and sell out the wether and draft ewe 
lambs and the over-aged ewes at the autumn fairs, and although 
more is made of the sheep by this practice it is pretty certain 
that the Cotswold farmer would lose more by his crops than he 
would gain by his flock if he managed in the same way. 
Moreover, neither soil nor climate are here favourable for the 
production of early feed for lambs, and it is always a doubtful 
experiment to depart from the custom of the country founded 
on the experience of generations that so surely indicates the 
practice that is best adapted to the circumstances of each 
locality. 
Until comparatively recently the necessary consolidation ot 
the soil was affected by the treading not only of the flock but 
also of the oxen that were formerly worked on all hill farms, 
and which are now seldom used. The ox team was cheaply 
maintained, did not require the more costly buildings necessary 
for horses, and being sold out at six years old at good prices 
for grazing in the rich Somersetshire marshes, the draught 
animals were always growing into money. Although old and 
experienced farmers often remark that since they gave up their 
ox teams they are not so forward with their work, and their 
crops suffer more than they did from wireworm, more boys 
were required than with horses and they are now not 
forthcoming, whilst the value of old worked oxen is also much 
less than in the seventies of the last century, and fewer are 
kept every year. On the Continent, however, cattle, both oxen 
and cows, are everywhere used for all kinds of agricultural 
work, and there seems no prospect of their being supplanted 
by horses. 
While the ox team is still occasionally found at work on the 
Cotswolds, another practice that was universal half a century 
ac 0 is now entirely discontinued. This was the breast-ploughing 
and burning of old sainfoin and clover leys and foul wheat 
stubbles. The breast-plough, which, with the flail, may still 
