SHEEP. 
is another very serious evil attending the kind of | A genus of hardy, ornamental, yellow-flowered, 
fleece in question, namely, that after the snow 
has fallen, the ground drift prevails to a very 
formidable extent ; and it is from this kind of 
drift that the store-farmer has to apprehend most 
danger to his flock, inasmuch as in nine cases 
out of ten it is by the rieves of snow thereby ac- 
cumulated that his flock is overwhelmed ; and 
although the drift may not prevail to a very 
alarming extent, yet, as the animal seeks food or 
shelter, or in any way alters his position with 
regard to the storm, or as the wind swirls from 
one inequality of the surface of the ground to 
another, or as the animal encounters a different 
current of the blast, one part of its loose fleece 
is lifted after another, and thus every where the 
snow and wind find access to the skin, till each 
portion of the fleece is drifted full of snow. It 
must then, I think, be evident to every one how 
much these circumstances tend to endanger the 
life of the animal; and I affirm that a close 
fleece is better adapted for retaining, in win- 
ter, the amount of condition acquired in summer, 
and the sheep possessing it are thereby a degree 
in advance in spring. It is contended, on the 
other hand, that the more open fleece is, in 
general, longer in the pile, and, therefore that 
it will yield a greater clip, and that the high 
prices which have, of late years, been obtained 
for wool, sufficiently justify the preference 
which has been given to the sheep which yield 
it. My experience has led me to an opposite 
conclusion, and I have almost invariably found 
that the little additional length which is some- 
times found in the more open fleece, is more than 
counterbalanced by the greater number of piles 
in the close one, and their superior fineness.” 
See the article Woon.—Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom. 
—Lewich’s History of Quadruneds. — Bingley’s 
british Quadrupeds—Jardine’s Naturalist’s Libra- 
ry.—Pennant’s British Zoology.— Parkinson on 
Live Stock.—Culley on Live Stock— Baxter's Li- 
brary of Agricultural Knowledge. — Bourgonne’s 
Travels.— Young's Annals of Agriculture—Sir 
John Sinclair on the Different Breeds of Sheep.— 
Pallas on Sheep.— Low's Domestic Animals.— 
Spooner on the History and Diseases of Sheep.— 
Youatt on Sheep —Rham’s Dictionary of the Farm. 
—Communications to the Board of Agriculture.— 
The Quarterly Journal of Agriculture.—The Jour- 
nal of the Royal Agricultural Society of Hngland. 
—The Transactions of the Highland Society.— 
Andersons Recreations in Agriculture—Hunter’s 
Georgical Essays —Buel’s Farmer's Instructor,— 
Dickson's Husbandry of the Ancients.—Dr. Diek- 
son’s Practical Husbandry. —Young’s Farmer's 
Calendar.— Napier’s Treatise on Practical Store- 
Farming. 
SHEEP-COTE. See Foup and SuuEp-Srewn. 
SHEEP-FOLDS. See Forp. 
SHEEP-MAGGOT. See Fry-1n-Sueep. 
- SHEEP-PENS. See Huropuez. 
SHEEP'S BEARD, —botanically Arnopogon. 
herbaceous, exotic plants, of the succory divi- 
sion of the composite order. ‘Two annual species 
and a perennial have been introduced to Britain 
from the South of Europe; and a biennial from 
the Cape of Good Hope. 
SHEEP’S FESCUE. See Fustuca. 
SHEEP-SHEARING. See Sunanine or Sunzp. 
SHEEP’S-SCABIOUS, —botanically Jasione. 
A small genus of ornamental herbaceous plants, 
of the bellflower order. The mountain sheep’s- 
scabious, or common sheep’s-bit, Jastone montana, 
abounds on the sandy pastures and dry heathy 
grounds of Britain. Its root is annual; its her- 
bage is rough with short rigid hairs; its stems 
are either simple or branched and from 4 to 15 
inches high ; its leaves are sessile ; and its flow- 
ers grow in a terminal tuft or head, and have a 
fine blue colour, and bloom in June and July. 
Two perennial-rooted, evergreen, blue-flowered 
species,—the dwarf and the perennial, the former 
about 6 inches high and blooming from June 
till September, and the latter about a foot high 
and blooming in June and July,—have been in- 
troduced to Britain from France, and are well 
adapted for ornamental rockwork. 
SHEEP’S-SORREL. See Sorren. 
SHEEP-STELL. A place of retreat and se- 
curity for sheep during the prevalence of a 
mountain-storm, It differs from every kind of 
fold in being, not simply a place for feeding, but 
principally an asylum from danger. Stells are ex- 
ceedingly various in size, form, material, position, 
and appliance; and they must, in a general view, 
have just the construction and character which 
will best suit the exigencies of each particular 
farm. But a very common and very good one 
is simply a circular wall, about 30 feet in dia- 
meter, about 63 feet in height, on dry ground, 
on as level a spot as possible, in such a situation 
that the drifting snow may be expected to be 
carried clear of the pasture, and accompanied, 
on one side, with a hay-yard of about 21 feet by 
15; and such a stell is specially efficient when a 
large enough plantation extends on the weather 
side of it to break the force of the prevailing 
winds, and when a wall of two roods in length 
is attached on the side opposite the hay-yard. 
A set of structures like this will well serve for 
eight scores of sheep; and should stand on a 
part of the farm to which the flock naturally 
resort in winter. When flocks are large, a com- 
paratively large number of stells at compara- 
tively small distances, all about the size which 
we have indicated, are very greatly preferable to 
a lesser number at wider distances. No hollow 
should intervene between any stell and the adja- 
cent hill or acclivity; for a hollow in such a 
position is liable to be filled with drifted snow 
at the very outset of a storm, and may in conse- 
quence arrest the retreat of the flock from the 
hill to the shelter. A circular form of stell is 
preferable to any other form for winter protec- 
