258 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
[ March 2S, 1891. 
THE LAMBING SEASON. 
EAPtLY lambs have had the advantage of fine dry weather this 
•season, and it is the late lambs of the present month that have had 
to encounter much snow and cold cutting wind from the north¬ 
east, and losses have been considerable. Losses we wish strongly 
to impress upon our readers, which, with very few exceptions, might 
have been avoided had only ordinary precautions been taken 
to afford such young and tender animals a reasonable amount of 
shelter. 
There are many farmers who “ lamb down ” only two or three 
score ewes, and for so small a number it is not thought worth 
while making a special fold. The shelter to be had from hedges, 
buildings, or trees is thought sufficient, if any thought is given to 
the matter at all, and with favourable weather all may go well. 
But then the weather is precisely the factor upon which we can 
place no dependance, and there is a great deal too much of 
■“ winter sitting in the lap of spring” in our climate for any risk 
of the sort to be run with impunity. For example, in a certain 
flock under our notice, the lambing began in the first week of the 
present month in fine and exceptionally mild weather; but with 
•the second week came the inevitable cold nor’-easters, with 
frequent snowstorms, and we were told of the loss of a fine strong 
lamb, which was followed by that of four others by the end of 
the week. It then occurred to the farmer that the flock was too 
much exposed in an outlying meadow, with nothing but the hedge 
for shelter, and they were taken into the home croft where the 
wind was less keen, but not a thatched hurdle, crib, or even a 
iamb cloth was to be seen on the farm. 
This happened in a certain locality where all the holdings are 
small, and where every farmer has his small ewe flock, yet not 
one of them had a lambing fold, and I w'as not surprised to hear 
on the 14th inst. of the loss of twelve ewes in another flock. 
Those ewes had been allowed to fall into low condition last 
autumn, when feed was so scarce upon pastures. They were still 
more reduced during the long hard winter which followed the 
autumn drought so closely, so that they had insufficient sustenance 
during the whole period of gestation. Then came the exposure to 
the recent bitter weather, either during the lambing or vei'y soon 
after it. Can we wonder that some of the sorely tried animals 
succumbed to it? Rather are we surprised that the losses are 
not heavier. When an animal is exposed to wet and cold much 
of its food goes to sustain vital heat and not to the nourishment 
of its body, and the strain upon ewes from such exposure 
tells both upon them and upon the lambs. They are reduced in 
strength just when they require to he kept in fair condition, and 
suffer accordingly, sometimes becoming so weak that a few days 
of cold weather at lambing time kills them outright. 
Now one’s scheme of management should rather aim at preven¬ 
tion than cure in this matter. We should so feed and shelter the 
ewes that there is but little, if any, risk of loss from exhaustion. 
Better practice in this should follow our recognition of the cause 
and remedy of exhaustion. It comes in most cases from an en¬ 
feebled condition. The ewes do not have enough food after the 
summer grass is eaten off ; every foot of pasture is nibbled over 
•again and again till it is quite bare. If snow falls thickly a little 
hay is given once a day, but there is no regular process of feeding, 
and yet extra food is required for nourishment at that time. 
€an we wonder, then, that ewes die of exhaustion after the 
severe strain of the lambing upon their half-starved bodies, 
or that cases of abortion are frequent ? Then, too, how weak and 
small the lambs are, for they have been badly nourished before 
birth, and fare very little better afterwards. The whole thing is a 
miserable fiasco, a caricature of farming which can have no satis¬ 
factory result. Profitable farming does not follow', has no con¬ 
nection with such faulty practice ; better be without land or flock 
than to turn them to such poor account. 
Food and shelter are the tw'o indispensables with which, and 
sound healthy ewes, there ought not, and indeed is not, much 
risk of loss ; the risk is very much in proportion to an insuffi¬ 
ciency of either. But the food must be wholesome and the 
shelter thorough. There must be no frozen Turnip diet, no 
muddy folds ; the ewes must be kept on sound firm land, and 
have sound nourishing food. Strange indeed is it that such 
obvious truths are so frequently ignored. We call attention 
to them now while failures are in evidence, and hope that some 
effort at better practice may be the result. We must leave 
nothing to chance, but must ahvays make provision for a scarcity 
of food and for hard weather. It may be well in another paper 
to show once more how this can best be done. 
WOKK ON THE HOME FARM. 
Farm work in the south and west has been practically brought to a 
standstill upon the land by the sudden outburst of winter weather, and 
the chief business has been the extra care required by the live stock. 
The greatest difficulty with sheep has been among flocks in valleys or 
low-lyiug land where the snow drifted much. On the uplands there 
was comparatively very little difficulty, the chief on-; being the carting 
of food to the folds, which has been no light matter, as many of the 
roads were snowed up. The early lambs have had such'a, good time that 
they are fine sturdy animals, well able to encounter a change to colder 
weather. But late lambs have been confined to the large enclosure, 
which we always make alongside the lambing fold. This is surrounded 
by a straw wall made by placing parallel lines of hurdles about 18 inches 
apart, and cramming the space between them with straw or rough 
litter, the lambs are thus screened from cold winds and are kept suffi¬ 
ciently snug and warm. Silage, roots, and a few crushed Oats and bran 
keep the ewes going nicely, and they are only let out of the fold in 
suitable weather. Hoggets have been kept in the folds upon Swedes, 
with a change to pasture for a few hours daily. The Swedes now being 
used were placed in small circular heaps, ajid covered in the field in 
readiness for this folding. We did this because the roots were an early 
crop sown last year soon after the Mangolds, ?.ad so have avoided the 
loss of roots, which has been so serious on many farms this winter. 
This hint is worthy of attention now, for rhe time for root sowing will soon 
be here again, and we hold entirely with getting in most of the Swedes 
early, i.ate sown Swedes left-out have lost all green tops, but the 
small roots are otherwise uninjured. 
Strongly do we advise all home farmers to rear as many calves as 
possible, and they ought to be able to do so, because there is always 
plenty of milk to spare for the purpose where so many cows are kept for 
a home dairy supply. Store beasts are both low in condition and high 
in price now, and anything like a profit upon their purchase seems im¬ 
possible. We saw some sold at an auction sale in Leicestershire last 
week, at so high a price that the local term of “ silly dear” was in the 
mouths of most of the company. If we would have store beasts pro¬ 
fitable they must be well bred and home bred too. 
METEOEOLOaiCAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 51° 82' 40" N.; Long. 0° 8' 0" W.; Aititnde, 111 feet. 
DATK. 
9 AM. 
IN THE DAT. 
d 
1891. 
March. 
Barome¬ 
ter at 328 
and Sea 
Level. 
Hygrome¬ 
ter. 
[ Direction 
of VVind, 
i 
- 
o.- 
g O'- 
CJ Oi ^ 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
snn. 
On 
grass 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
Id. 
Sunday.15 
tw.o 
81.8 
S.E. 
38..5 
41.(! 
31.3 
63.1 
2.5.8 
0.223 
Monday.16 
29.-or;: 
81). S 
39.6 
S E. 
38.6 
47.4 
£0.1 
74.9 
80.7 
0.05 » 
Tuesday .... 17 
29.373 
41.1 
40.8 
J-’.F. 
f,S.9 
47.1 
37.4 
r>8.8 
30.4 
0.069 
Wednesday., 18 
42.4 
42.0 
K.E. 
43.1 
4).l 
68.8 
30.9 
_ 
Thursday,... 19 
29.8'0 
40.4 
07.3 
N. 
f9.r 
4L.3 
81.2 
92.1 
29.5 
_ 
Friday .SO 
SO.tOL 
37.9 
f.*i. 4 
w. 
■39.1 
40.9 
38.2 
19.6 
28.1 
0.010 
Saturday .... 2t 
29.838 
87.7 
3i.2 
H. 
8 <.9 
4!.G 
81.3 
88.3 
20.7 
0.030 
29.70,1 
89.8 
37.9 
£0.1 
4.-5.G 
Sf.9 
74.4 
29.7 
O.E82 
EBMAEK3. 
iStli.—Sunshine early, c’only morning, drizzle in afternoon, r.a'n from 0 to 11 P M, 
lath.—A httie sun early, frcfinent showeis fr m 8 AM. to 2 P.M., tome sunshine in 
afternoon. 
17th.—Overcast, w'th constnnt drizzle and showers. 
isrh.—Overca.st throughout. The last remnants of snow drifts nearly gone, 
lots,— Fine with )r. quent snn, but a few flakes of snow at 4 30 p M. 
20th.— Alternsie .‘■uashine and spots cf rain, an a heavy shower at 4.15 P M. 
21st.—tlenerally do idv w th occasional fi kes of snow in morning, a luayy iho ver of 
soft hail at 0 P.M., ti' n flue and brif ht. 
T-mneratrire not to low as in the previous week, but still below theaverag'.— 
—G. J. Simons. ' 
