CIHM ICMH Microfiche Collection de Series microfiches (Monographs) (monographies) Canadian Institute for Historical Microraproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques ©1996 Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming are checked below. n n n n D Coloured covers / Couverture de couteur Covers damaged / Couverture endommag^ Covers restored and/or laminated / Couverture restaur^ et/ou pellicula Cover title missing / Le titre de couverture manque Coloured mz^js / Cartes g^ographiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black) / Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Coloured plates and/or illustrations / Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material / Reli§ avec d'autres documents Only edition available / Seule Edition disponible Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin / La reliure serr^ peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge int^rieure. Blank leaves added during restorations may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming / II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 6t6 film^s. Additional comments / Commentaires suppl^mentaires: This ttain It f llnwd at the raduction ratio ehcckad balow / Ca deeumant aat fllm4 au taux da rMuction indiqii< cMteaaous. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6X6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem- plaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibli- ographique, qui peuvent nxxjifier une image reproduite. ou qui peuvent exiger une nruxJifk^tion dans la m^tho- de nomiale de filmage sont indiqu^s ci-dessous. 11 Coloured pages / Pages de couleur I I Pages damaged / Pages endommag6es □ Pages restored and/or laminated / Pages restaurtes et/ou pellicul^es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed / Pages dteolor^s, tachet^es ou piqutes [^ Pages detached / Pages d6tach6es I s/l Showthrough/ Transparence □ Quality of print varies / Quality in^gale de I'impression Includes supplementary material / Comprend du materiel suppl^mentaire Pages wholly or partially obscured by en-ata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image / Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont 6\6 film^es i nouveau de iagon ^ obtenir la meilleure image possible. Opposing pages with varying colouration or discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the best possible image / Les pages s'opposant ayant des colorations variables ou des decolorations sont film^es deux fois afin d'obtenir la meilleure image possible. D G D lOx 14x 18x 22x 26x 30x / 12x 16x 20x 24x 28x 32x The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Library Agriculture Canada L'exemplaire filmt fut reproduit grAce A la gAnArositA de: BiUiothique Agriculture Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Les images suivantes ont iti reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at de la nettetA de l'exemplaire film*, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimte sont filmAs en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la derniire page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second plat, salon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmte en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol ^^ (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la derniire image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ^ signifie "A SUiVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmte i des taux de rMuctlon diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, il est filmA A partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) I.I 1^ 12.8 |U 13.6 2.2 1.8 ^' /APPLIED IM^GE 'nc 1653 Eosl Main Street Rochester, New Ym' '4609 USA (716) 482 - 0300 (716) 288- 5989 SHEEP Their Breeding and Management BY A. R. JBNNBR-FUST Q UEB E C DUSSAULT & PROULX, PRINTERS 19OI «/ SHEEP THEIR BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT I SHEET Their Breeding and Management BY A. R. J^NNER-FUST QUEBEC DUSSAULT & ^ROULX, PRINTERS I9OI INTRODUCTION gEFORK we enter into pa ticulars connected with our subject : Sheep, their Breeding and Man- agement : it would be as well to consider, at some length, the princ ^..es on which breeding in general should be conducted. For, the problems connected with breeding, crossing, etc., are both numerous and intricate. For instance, why does the produce of a Dorking cock and a Cochin-china hen differ so entirely from the produc2 of a Cochin cock and a Dorl g hen ? It is so, and, remark, the difference, thoug nore or less varied in quantity, is constant in quality. Why, again, is the get by a male horse out of a female donkey utterly distinct from the produce of a stallion ass and a mare? So different, indeed, from one another are they, that each has, in England, a distinctive name, the one by a male ass being called a « mule », that by a horse, a «hinny .. As to the original whence our domesticated animals spring, there can be little uoubt that, as in — 6 — the case of wheat and other cereals, of pease and other pulse, they have been fostered and protected by the hand of man, until the rough progenitors of our Devons and Kyloes, have, in the persons of their descendants, become the smooth, finished pictures •.ve see in our exhibitions. And we must distinguish races from breeds. We may talk of a Devon or a Kyloe as belonging to a race, but the term cannot with propriety be applied to a Shorthorn; a Welsh mountain sheep and a Scotch Blackface, both may be said to be part of a race, but a Leicester and an Oxford-down belong to a breed. The first person to form the idea of originating a breed of domesticated animals, which should be superior to the native races, the aboriginals, I need hardly say was Robert Bakewell, of Dishley. He began with the sheep, which rough and ragged, small and ill-shaped as was the stock then available, he succeeded by patient selection and considerate matching of parents, in improving into the modern Leicester. With the cattle of his immediate neigh- bourhood, for he wisely chose the animals nearest to his hand as his materials, he succeeded in producing the « Longhorns », still highly esteen;e4 — 7 — ; in the rich pastures round Leicester and Rugby, a I breed of cattle that, though some years ago they I were getting into disrepute, are once more coming j into favour. Before a man devotes himself to the breeding of 1 any description of stock, he must necessarily form ' to himself a definite idea of the style, size, and shape of the animal he desires to propagate. When Thomas Booth, of Warlaby, began improv- ing the cattle of his vicinity in Yorkshire, he had already in his mind the idea of the modern shorthorn. Somewhere about 1790, observing that the valley of the Tees was depastured by a fine roomy stock of cattle, he chose certain of the best examples of ^ them for his parent stock. The defects that he aimed at suppressing were an undue prominence of ehe I shoulder-point, a general soda-water bottle build of I the body, too much « day light » under the belly, and a want of uniformity in laying on flesh evenly and firmh all over the frame. Selecting a few cows from the herd of Mr. Broader, of Fairholme (a tenant of the writer's gt. grandfather), and putting them to moderate size bulls, Mr. Booth succeeded in laying the foundation of « The Booth blood », many of the most celebrated families of Shorthorns of the present 4ay owing their ^jjistence tp these Fairholme cows. — 8 — The principle upon which these earlier breeders all worked, was the one that is now universally acknowledged to be correct : « Like produces like .. ; an unfailing ground to go upon, and one that admits of a far wider application than is generally allowed, and should be regarded not only in the coupling of the sexes for the propagation of the inferior animals, but also in the continuation of the human species ; if more attention were paid to this rule by our heads of families, we should not have so many idiots and scrofulous people about. Nature always avenges an infraction of her laws. But, while it is perfectly Vtue that like produces like, there is another rule in biology that steps in to teach us caution, and that is the tendency of all animals to « throw back » to some remote ancestor, whose peculiar points, long forgotten probably,' suddenly make their appearance in one of his descen- dants. This is called « atavism » from the Latin word a^avus, an ancestor, originally, a gt., gt., gt. grand- father, and is frequently observed by the breeders of white pigeons, who, in spite of all their pains to keep their birds pure in colour, constantly find, to their disgust, that, from time to time, black feathers will show themselves in the growing squabs. (Darwin) — 9 — Here, then, we find the rule established that it is not enough that immediate parents be of fine shape, good colour, and robust constitution, but they must be descended from families which, for generations, have boasted of desirable qualities, if we are to hope for an offspring that shall not disappoint our expect- --*» ation. The form aimed at by all breeders, more or less, , of animals intended for the butcher, is that called I by mathematicians, the parallelopiped. A carpenter's pencil gives a good idea of this figure to non-mathematical readers ; it is contained by six I' sides, each of which is a parellelogram. Its propor- ! tions are not only beautiful in themselves, but they have a large capacity within small dimensions. There is no doubt that the earlier breeders of improved stock began their work by coupling males and females within the forbidden degrees of consan- guinity. What else could they do ? If they went abroad for unrelated males to put to their females, what did they find ? Inferior animals, not fit to be named in the same class as their own. Bakewell, after he had succeeded in fixing the type, in search of which he set out, could never be tempted to make use of a strange animal, however enticing might be lO — its form or quality : he bred entirely from his own stock. What said Mr. Booth to the advice of a friend of mine, who had recommended him to introduce for- eign blood into his herd ? I will, if you will tell me where to find any as good ! to Let us now, for a short time, turn our attention THE PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING Now, the principles of breeding are no longer veiled in mystery, but, from the constant inquiry to which they have been subjected, and from the very high attainments of those gentlemen by whom those inquiries have been conducted, a flood of light has been thrown on the question, and rules have been laid down for the guidance of breeders which, when faithfully followed out, will invariably prove satisfac- tory. It seems, then, that the organs and functions of the animal structure are divisible into three great classes, the locomotive, the vital, and the mental. The locomotive organs are the bones ; the lig- aments ; the muscles. These are connected with the Weryes of ojption which arise fron; the ' cerebellum « — II — 1^ the back part of the head. The shape, the limbs, and the skin, belong to chis class. The vital organs are the organs of absorption, as the lymphatics ; of circulation, as the arteries, veins ; the organs of secretion, as the glands. These are connected with the sympathetic nerves, which spring from the « cerebrum », the fore part of the head. The digestive, respiratory, and reproductive organs, with the fat, milk, and other animal products, belong to this class. The mental organs : the eyes, the ears ; the organs of perception, and the organs of volition. The func- tions of the first are to receive impressions from without ; of the second, to perceive, compare, reflect ; of the third to will, and, consequently, to throw the muscles into action to fulfil its purpose. Now, the grand purpose of these inquiries is to determine whether or not one parent, or both indiscriminately, impart their organisation to the offspring. And it is to this point that, in spite of its want of attractiveness, we should turn our earnest attention, for it is owing to the indifference with which it has been .so long regarded that breeding has been so uncertain an undertaking. — 12 — Men of science, after innuineral)le experiments have decided that one class of organs is propagated by the male, and the other by the female. The whole law may be summarised thus ; the dam gives the whole of the nutritive organs, and the sire the whole of the locomotive organs. The thinking organs come in « equal » and « distinct » portions from both parents. Following out, then, to its fullest limit this doctrine, we see that, if we desire to improve any part of the locomotive organisation in our stock we shall look for it in vain from the female ; if, on the other hand we seek to improve the nutritive system we shoulu look for it in vain from the male • thai ^s, m simple terms, if we desire, in cattle for ins- tance, an improvement in the shape, we must look to the bull for it, if we want increased production of milk, or increased tendency to fatten, we must look to the cow. So, in breeding sheep, it is the ram who gives the wool, the ewe who ives the tendency to fatten and the increased production of milk. When we consider that both parents have a share, a distinct and positive share, in the mental organs,' it will not be difficult to see why, after a long and — 13 — injudicious course of in-and-in breeding, all desire seems to be wanting in the male. Suppose the case of a bull breeding with his daughter and again with his grand daughter. Now, he c'ives, kt us say, the anterior organs to his daughter, thus the two animals become, so far, identical ; but, in breeding with his ^i daughter, he may give his posterior organs to his grand daughter; and, as the grand daughter will thus bear both his series of organs— the former from the mother, the latter from himself — it is evident that, as regards these organs, the two are perfectly iden- tical, and the identity of the mental organs destroys all desire for reproduction, the differences which are essential to excitement having no existence. J^ But, although some of our early improvers were as we have said, obliged, from the nature of the case, to tread a dangerous path, this is no longer the prac, tice of our great breeders. They all have lines of blood, families, of relations it is true, but sufficiently far removed to be matched without fear of the conse- q..£nces. And it is fortunate for all of us that it is so, for in no other way could the improvement made of late years by crossing have been carried out. The effect of adhering tenaciously to a particular family, or line of blood, has been to confer on the male a peculiarly impressive power, by which his form and — 14 — substance are transmitted to his offspring, the dam contributing, apparently, nothing towards it. In no breed is this so marked a quality as in the Shorthorn, probably because in no other case has so ni h pains been taken to preserve the lines of blood pure and intact. The writer saw, at the Hon. M. H.Cochrane's, a few years ago, a calf, by Royal Commander out of a Kyloe heifer, that disowned, in every- thing but the jolly ruggedness of his roan coat, the very mother that bore him ! Hence it is that four crosses of Shorthorn blood are considered enough to admit the produce to Herd-book honours. CROSSING Nobody can doubt about the wonderful good that :ias been produced by the well conceived system of crossing that has now, for many years, been prac- tised in England. At first, the principle upon which the practice was based was little understood, but of late years the more abrupt and violent attempts of the earlier breeders have been avoided, and the more natural, and therefore more sensible course has been pursued. One rule, however, has been in vogue for, I can safely attest, the last 60 years, viz , to put the best of the pair, i. e. the male atop, and to employ in crossing, as in every other branch of breeding, nothing but thoroughbred males. — 15 — Before beginning to improve our stock of any kind by crossing, it is evident that we should put this query to ourselves : is our soil sufficiently good to feed the product of th ; purposed cross as it will need to be fed ? There are many situations in which a high-bred stock of sheep, cattle, or horses cannot be n\ maintained as a breeding-stock ; continued crossing !^ cannot in such cases be followed out, for, eventually the whole herd or flock would become like the tho- roughbred parent, and utterly unfit for the locality. Thus, to keep on breeding from Shorthorn bulls and the common cow of the country, — what the Americans call « scrubs » — on the poorer clay and sands of this province, would be most injudicious. The first and second crosses are all that should be attempted, the heifers being still kept true to the parent stock, until the general improvement, to which we all so anxiously look forward is secured, and the land becomes fit to support a superior class of animals. As for the notion that exists, that, if a large sire be put to a small dam, the foetus will be so large I that the mother will not be able to bring it to the I light, I attach no weight to it ; for the foetus is I always proportioned to the matrix that contains it. I There may be a little trouble, perhaps, in its expul- '« -« M — i6 — Look, (or instance, at the modern Exmooa ponies Seventy or eighty years ago, they were little c«a' „ Hhe" '" '° '^^'^^ "-"^ '"^'•. with It rg but the.r consftution and hardiness to recommend them. Now, crossed as they have been with fuU sized, thor- nghbred stallions, a more perfec t'l ni pony for a lady, phaeton cannot bft '*::; they have so increased in height that many of them run from 14 ,0 14 ji hands. °>°fthem and""^''" a *""" "'''' ^''""''O™ ''""^ »f such si3e and we,gh on small country cows that the la er could barely support the weigh, of the buH a serv.ce, and the parturition of the calf 1. attended by any evil consequence mo" „! ^ in an ordinary herd. '* "^'■^' — 17 — Once more ; I have coupled the small refined type of Southdown ewes with the heavy Hampshire- down ram, and, although the head of the Hampshire- down was in those days disproportionately larjre, the lambing was got through with much as usual. And here I must inention, as an instance of the effect of crossing, the creation of the Rabraham flock of Southdowns, premising that what I am about lo state is merely an opinion, I formed purely from my own judgment, without the slightest evidence, material or otherwise, to ^o upon. The original progenitors of this most beautiful collection of sheep were brought, somewhere abciut 65 years ago, from Glynde, Sussex, the well known abode of the celebnted Mr. Ellman, one of the first great breeders of the Southdown. They were elegant, deer-like creatures, with narrow chests, light fore- quarters, good, though of course small, legs of mutton, and good loins. They « went to fold » ever>- night on the fallows, on the breezy downs looking over the sea. We shall hear more about this foidino- system later. Seldom killed before three years old, their weight, when fat, varied from 14 to 16 pounds the quarter. To this very day, the highest prices — i8 — quoted in the pape« for mutton in the =rreat r „ A market is for <5™„i.j "■ '"e great London carca^ i e . ^ 1 7" ' '""" ^ '° ^4 Iks. "-iss, 1. e., 15 to 16 lbs the auart*»r wru T . flavour of the „,eat of these s nail ' ''' who have been «n f . ^^^ '^^^' ^^^°se "dve Deen so fortunate as to tasfp fT,- j j, a three nr o f ^ ^"^ saddle of -rj p, :: --'^ S-'-.^own „et,,er wi,, with now Jrarit t "'"' " ""' '" *« "■^' 'othatage ' '"'°"""°^'">'°^«P»i-P From this flock of Mr I7ii«, -cted.,e.e.e.anTar:ir.r:,t;^ Mr. Webb was « .^^T'^llZZT'^'' t«at.ent of .he flock was, J^ T^^^T knew, but i, was -nost successful • I ,. !' ^o months oM Often weigj;!:;::;-:-- a q-arter, and yet retained al. the oual tv „f . parens stock as reeard, n,„f T ^ ^ ' ""^ as regards meat and wool, while n,. boson, was enlarged, the neck s,rength.n;d an d ^ wool „,„ch improved. Of course thebe: ' oi the Cambridgeshire farm ! '"'^P gesnire farm must have had «„ .mmeus.. .nflnence on the growth of the anim for no doubt the small size of the f:mii&t. ^^v — 2r — For instance ; the cross of the CotswoM ram and the Hampshire-down ewe, as we have seen, turned out most successf'-Uy ; but the cross between the Cheviot ram and ti*e Leicester ewe, as well as that between the Black-face ram and the Leicester ewe, were complete failures ; the progeny, in both cases, showing a worse and more uncertain organisation than either of the parents. If it be true that breeding from a good sire and dam does not necessarily ensure a good progeny, can it be true that « Like begets like ? » I answer, that I believe the adage to be true in a certain sense, but it is undoubtedly not true in the popular sense in which it is used, and I believe it has led many a young breeder astray, by inducing him to believe that, when he had purchased a good-looking sire, he had secured all the conditions necessary for a good progeny. There is no error more prevalent among young breeders and there can scarcely be a more fatal one. An animal has certain qualities apparent to the hand and eye ; it has also hidden qualities that neither the hand nor the eye can detect, but which hidden or latent qualities descend to the offspring, and, when the animal has been crossed with another animal of different blood, these qualities will produce new combinations palpable 22 — and unexpected. The above maxim is true then in this sense ; that although the offspring may appear unlike either father or mother, yet the peculiar properties of both parents are not lost in the off- spring ; they are inherited, but in combination may have produced effects that probably had not, and could not, with any degree of certainty, have been foreseen. That these qualities are not lost would appear evident, as it is found that peculiarities derived from even remote aT.cestors will, from time to time, more or less frequently, according to the skill and perseverance of the breeder, show them- selves, or « crop out, » to use the term of the geologist. The law of crossing is that when each parent is of a different breed, both being equal in age and vigour, the male gives the back head and locomotive organs, the female giving the face and the nutritive organs. This law, in its effects on the domesticated animals, is very similar to the law of selection ; but in crossing, the parents always maintain this rela- tively position, while in ordinary breeding, the par- ents change position in proportion to the compara- tively greater vigor of the characteristics of each, and when one imprints the prevailing characteris- tics, the other stamps the opposite. The cause that, in the crosses, the male gives •^ Jr. — 23 — the cerebellum, or back of the head, and the locomo- tive system, is both striking and beautiful. If no being can desire that of which it is already in posses- sion ; if, on the contrary, it must desire that of which it is most devoid (if not incompatible), it cannot be wondered at that in crosses, when the desired difference is greatest, the male, whose desire is more ardent, should stamp the system by which he exercises that desire, namely the voluntary loco- m'-tive, upon the progeny. If, then, of the two great series of organs described, each belongs entirely to a distinct parent, we can neither desire in the proge- ny both series from one parent, nor portions of both from each parent ; and every attempt to attain either end must be a failure. It moreover shows that, in a feeble or imperfect cross, bad as well as good combinations may be produced ; but that such a progeny has present the desired qualilits must be alone preserved for future breeding, while the infe- rior must be set aside The intermediate character of the qualities produced in crossing is owing, i.ot to each of the parents imperfectly contributing its share in the progeny's organization, but that, in their new combination, each series of organs acts upon and therefor modifies the other, (r) ^i) Walker : " On intermarriage. " CHAPTER I OF THE DIKKKRKNT BRKKDS OF SHEEP §HEEP, in ^^eueral, may be divided into two clas- ses : long-woolled and short-woolled ; thoujrh occasionally it may be convenient to speak of the middle-woolled, such as the Oxfords, Shropshires, etc. All the Down-breeds belonj^ to the short-woolled class; all the white-faced, siich as the Lincolns, Leicesters, etc, to the lons^-woolled. The former are superior in the flavour of the meat, and more active in their habits, than the long-woolls ; they stand crocvding better, i. e., more can be kept on the same extent of land, and their wool, in general, fetches a higher price on the market. In this country, particularly in this province, owing to the prevailing practice of domestic man- ufacturing, it has become the habit of the farmer to look upon the sheep as a wool-grower rather than as a producer of meat for the table ; consequently, if any improvement was sought for in the older flocks of the French-Canadian sheep, it was found in the long-wools, the Leicester or the Cotswold ; and this][ma\- account in great measure for the infer- 1 — 25 — iority of the greater part of the mutton we meet with at the hotels in the country towns of the prov- ince. Before the day of the late lamented Major Campbell, of St. Hilaire, there was hardly a Down sheep to be met with in the country ; thus, those farmers, who really Vvould have improved their flocks if they could have found the where-with, were left stranded, so to speak. However, in spite of our undisguised partiality for the short- wools, we must not forget that the great majority of the sheep in the country are still long-wools, and that a brief description of the dif- ferent breeds will be found interesting to their owners. Chief breeds of long-wool led sheep kept in the province of Quebec are the Leicester and the Cots- wold, with a few small flocks of Dorset-horns, that should rather be reckoned among the middle-wools. THE LEICESTER The Leicester, so called from the well known county of that name, is one of the earliest instan- ces of what can be done by the improver's skill and energy. Robert Rakewell, of whom more herep^ter, was the man who first, io to speak, made this val- uable breed of sheep. The wool of the Leicester is 26 — not so long as the wool of the Lincoln, but, there is no doubt of its having been employed in the re- < 0: o u: ►J moulding of the other long-wools. As far back as {668, Markhttai, writing of the sheep of the English — 27 — Midland counties, speaks of a lar^e-boned sheep, of the best shape, and the deepest staple (the thread or pile of the wool) ; they were chiefly pasture sheep, and their wool was coarser than that of the Cotsal. ^ .1.. Note. — We may remark here that « Cotsal, » or in the modern fonn,"Cotswold," a range of hills in Gloucestershire, is not, as usually supposed, derived from cot, a mud-hut, and wold, a wood, but from cote, a wood, and weald, a cleared forest, a curious example of two synanymous elements meeting in the same word, which often occurs in English names of places. Professor Low also says : « There is no reason, therefore, to assume, from any of the characters presented by the wool of the new Leicester breed, that the parent stock was any other than the long- woolled sheep of the Midland counties. .. It was thus from the ordinary sheep of his district that Robert Bakewell, a man of peculiar character,bv dint of thought and determined perseverance created the New Leicester or, as they were commonly called at first, the Dishley breed. His success was due to a firm faith in the power of animals to transmit their good qualities to their progeny, and to his cons- tantly keeping his eye on the type he wished to produce. Apparently, he did not greatly trouble himself about the wool, but aimed at bringing — 28 — out an animal taking in form, of early maturity and possessed of a tendency to lay flesh on the npper part of the body. ^^ It was about the year 1755 that Bakewell began lie improvement of the breed of sheep that lay at Ins own door. He worked upon the principle, of which he was the originator, that the properties of the parents may be transmitted to their offspring until fixity of type is the result He had also what in modern slang would be called « a good eye for a beast, » whether that beast was a sheep, a bull or a stallion. He could see that quality was prefer- able to mere bulk ; that perfection of form must be accompanied by readiness to profit by food. The result of Bakewell's work was the formation o an improved sheep, somewhat smaller than the older breed, but more symmetrical, thicker, deeper and more easily fattened at an earlier age. He reaped a great harvest from his exertions; his first ram et for in our currency, $4.50 the season, but before long the price rose to 1^500.00, and in 1786 he made ^5,000.00 by letting his stock. In 1789, he let three rams for $6,000.00, and $10,000.00 for seven • and in the same year he made $15,000.00 more by Jetting the remainder of the rams to the Dishlev Society, then just founded for the purpose of car- rying on the good work. The above facts, says Mr. Wrightson, must appear extraordinary to any one who reflects upon the — 29 — greater value of money one hundred years ago than now, and the much less general appreciation at that time of the advantages of wellbred stock. Then, there were no foreign buyers to stimulate biddings, no princes or millionnaires competing for favourite strains of blood. THE IMPROVED LEICESTER The modern Leicester is a white-faced, hornless .sheep, covered with a fleece, the staple of which is from seven to eight inches long, with a short twisted curl at the end. Points :- -Nostrils and lips black, nose rather nar- row with a tendency towards the Roman, but the shape of the face in general like a wedge, and covered with wool as to the forehead, though I have seen many good sheep with a naked front ; no signs of a horn : ears thin, long, and mobile ; a black spot occasionally on face and ears ; a good e}e ; neck short, and level with the back, thick, and tapering from skull to shoulders and bosom ; breast deep, wide, and prominent ; shoulders some- what upright and wide over the tops ; great thick- ness through the heart ; well filled up behind the shoulders, giving a great girth ; ribs well sprung from the back-bone, loins wide, hips level, quarters long and straight, well set-on tail, good legs of mutton well rounded over the hock, barrel round, great depth of carcase, fine in the bone ; the fleece — 30 — curly and free from black hairs ; the back and loins well-covered, the flesh firm, the pelt or skin springy to the touch ; the legs well set-on, hocks straight, pasterns firm, and feet neat. There is no use in keeping Leicesters too long before fattening them for the butcher, for thej- get so fat after they reach the age of fifteen months, or so, that, as somebody says somewhere, no one but a Scotch collier would eat them, and thereby hangs a tale : Many years ago, in 1848 or 49 I think, I was passing a few days at the Royal Hotel at Nor- wich, in a county where the farmers were all extensive sheep-men. Fancying that, in such a town, the mutton must be good, I ordered, for the dinner oi -ayself and party, a leg of mutton, among other things. At the appointed hour, up came the mutton ; I carved it, helped my friends round, and then myself. « What on earth is this?,, exclaimed I, on tasting it. « The mutton you ordered. Sir, » replied the waiter. « Oh ! » said one of my guest's, who happened to be a resident of the county ; most of our sheep here are Leicesters ; perhaps long-wools are not kept where you come from. » « No, said I, and if this a leg of long-wool mutton, I hope they never will be, for it is the worst fla- voured mutton I ever tasted.., Without stating that I had never eaten anything but Down mutton before, I may safely say that the flavour of the Nor- wich meat was so strange to me that I thought — 3' — some one had been playing me a trick to see if I should find it out. Says Prof. Wrightson, '' There is an idea preva. lent that the day of the Leicester is gone bv. Pure- bred Leicesters are so much given to lav on fat thickly," (and that on the loin and neck especially) •' and the demand for fat meat of all kind has so completely ceased, that everywhere the Downs are preferred." The great value of the Leicester is for crossmg, and, before I left England, the flocks in the county of Norfolk, where, as I said before, the Leicester reigned, in 48, pre-eminently, had almost all been convertea into half-breds, so it would be wrong to say that the Leicester is played out A useful cross is that between the South-down and the Leicester, or the one between the Hampshire- down and the Leicester. Of the numerous crosses used between the Leicester up in the North-country I can say nothing, for I am not familiar with them but there is, according to those who know what they are talking about, scarcely a breed which has not felt the influence of the Leicester, from the Cheviot and the Black-face of the Borders to the Cotswold of the hills and the Lincoln of the fens LINCOLN As we have just mentioned the Lincolns, we may as well devote a few sentences to them, though we do not fancy there are many of them kept Canada -32 — < o u x; .yr^ifcrr-niMfcr,- "KzaiA — 33 — The Lincoln is not unlike a large I^icester. It is the heaviest breed of sheep known, a full-mouth- ed ram of that breed having been killed, in 1826, that weighed 96 yi lbs. the quarter ! The flesh handles more hrmly than the flesh of the Leicester, the wool is extraordinarily long, samples having been met with that measured 21 inches in length • the whole fleece of the above-mentioned rain weighed 30 lbs. By the bye, it would be well to say that when- ever the weight of a fleece is stated in this essay, it is to be understood that it is the weight of a fleece that has been thoroughly washed on the sheep's back before shearing. I shall describe the operation of washing in the chapter on shearing. The wool of the Lincoln is very bright and lus- trous ; hence it has gained the name of lustre- wool, though it loses that charact-r when taken ■ away from its native habitat. In 1788, Bakewell got into a famous dispute with Mr. Chaplin, an - ancestor of the member of Parliament who, not very long ago, was Minister of Agriculture in Lord Salisbury's cabinet. It seems that Bakewell was sup- posed to have been prying about Chaplin's rams, after having been refused leave to inspect them, and Chaplin, naturally, was not pleased. However, Bakewell got out of the scrape pretty easily, show- ing that he had been introduced to the flock by ^E^ ■•'i3iir<:m'^ — 34 — Chaplin's own man, and had not, as Chaplin accus- ed him of doing, « been meanly sneaking into my pastures at Wrangle. • The new or improved Lincoln is the product of Leicester crosses upon the old Lincoln, and accord- ing to my idea can only be seen in perfection in his own home, as he needs, to what M. Mirobo- lant calls « perfectionate his work,» rich pastures and lots of room. As a mutton sheep, he is infe- rior to the Downs, as far as quality goes, though you must not tell a Lincolnshire man so, for I recollect some years ago a young Lincolnshire farmer, at Sorel, who was very anxious to send, on his return to England, a few Lincoln ewes and a ram to begin a flock of that breed in that notor- iously poor sandy spot ! The highest prices paid for rams of late or, indeed, at any time, have been paid for Lincolns, a ram of the breed having been sold for a thousand guineas, $5,000.00, only last year ! He was bred, if my memory serves me, by Mr. Dudding of Riby. BORDER-I.EICESTER I have not heard of late of any Border-Uicesters being kept in this province, but I remember a small flock of them, in 1870, being on the hands of the late Mr. Thomas Irving, of Petite C6te, on the — 35 — island of Montreal, If I do not mistake, the late Judge Ramsay had some of them, for I remember a long-legged brute of a ram, that could jump like a well-bred hun«^c. , ard who knocked me over (from behind!) whe i I was aL .he Judge's place at St- Hugues. Th creed, hov/ever, was in high favoiir o X w f w n « w >^ M X « « in the counties of Cumberland and Northumberland, and came oul well at the last meeting at Windsor of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. -36- The Border-Leicesters owe their improved state to the Culleys, who farmed on an immense scale at Wooler, Northumberland, paying rent for their several farms to the amount of ^6,000 or $30,000.00! At that time, 1767, the long-legged, rough-woolled Tees-Water was the chief breed of that county, but the new Leicesters, brought from Dishley by the Culleys, soon made a change in the appearance and quality of the flocks. In 1888, Lord Polwarth sold from the Mertoun flock 28 shearling rams for an average of ^36. 9 s. 3 d., and one for 165 guineas, or I182.00 and $825.00; in 1890, the Mertoun rams averaged ^^53, 19 s. 4 d., or $268.00. COTSWOLD Unlike most of the long-wools, the Cotswold seems to have early taken a fancy to the bleakest range of hills in the West-n.idlands of England. Rising from the River Severn, the lovely vale of Glo'ster spreads its rich meadows along the flat, gradually sloping upwards, till after terrace upon terrace has been mounted, the view is arrested by the steep, abrupt escartpment of the Cotwolds. Cold and bleak from their exposed situation, the hills produce rare food for stock. The pastures, though not what our fathers would have poetically termed < lush, * afford excessively healthy grass, and the rootcrops are both abundant and nutritious. The Cotswold sheep are among the most ancient i 1 — 37 — of our reorganised breeds. « Here » says Camden, « they feei in great numbers flockes of sheep, long necked, and square of bulk and bone by reason, as is commonly thought, of the weally^ and hilly situation of their pasturage, whose wool being more fine and soft is held in great account by all nations. » Stowc, in his Chronicles, says that, in 1463, Ed. IV " concluded an amnesty and league with King J ■ I -38- Henry of Castille and King John of Aragon, at the concluding whereof he granted licence for certain Cotes wold sheep to be transported into the country of Spain, which have there since mightily increased and multiplied to the Spanish profit. « But were these fine-wooled sheep the Cotswolds as we know them ? Hardly, I think ; they were prohably more like the merino ; for the pasture on the hills was shorter and finer than the grass on the rich grazing lands of Leicestershire and the other « Shires, « as our hunting men Quorum pars parva qui term them, and short, fine grass would naturally produce short, fine wool. There is no doubt that in the i8th century many Leicester rams were imported into the Cotswold country, and the breaking up of the downs, fol- lowed by the growing of turnips, would tend to increase the size of the sheep and the length and strength of their wool. All Canadians who care about sheep, know a Cotswold when they see one ; but many Canadian breeders of Cotswolds do not know that a gray-face is by no means a disqualification. I constantly see in the Gloucester Chronicle^ a paper I receive every week, advertisements of flocks for sale by auction, in which gray-faces are mentioned as enviable char- acteristics of the sheep in question. ill — 39 — The Cotswold is a big, upstanding sheep, with a more degage carriage than the Lincoln or Leicester. His heavily wooUed forehead is his great distinguish- ing mark, though his wool in general, with its bold, open curl should, to any judge of sheep, at once differentiate him from the other long-wools. Rather, « ewe-necked » and « goose-rumped. » it is true, but> on the whole a good « body of mutton ; » his shoulders broad on the tops, legs well let down, ample loins and well-sprung ribs ; all these points show him to be a really valuable sheep for every table except where ^mall joints are in request, as in the case of the West-end oi London, to which market, it is to be hoped, all our Quebec mutton will find its way when our farmers learn their true interests and devote themselves to the production of the best breeds of both cattle and s!'.eep. The fleece of the Cotswold runs from 6 to 8 lbs. though some exceptional fleeces may be met with that go over 8 and even 9 fts. Though two or three years ago, at the Smithfield Club show, in London, a pen of Cotswold lambs was nearly, if not quite, at the head of the lambs exhibited the Cotswold, as a general rule, is by no means celebrated for early maturity. They are said, by those who know them well, to be delicate when young, and to require time to come to the knife. They will not bear the close folding that suits the Down breeds, but have to be kept in small lots, a — 40 — fact that struck us forcibly when we first ran against them, unexpectedly, at a well-known farm near Compton, some 28 years ago. « Cotswold mutton, » says Prof. Wrightson, is of second quality, like most of the long-woolled breeds and IS pale in colour and long in the grain. When long-wool was higher in price than short-wool the position of the Cotswold was stronger than at present as a Cotswold fleece was well worth a sovereign $5-oo— . IS^w, the same fleece is probably not worth more than ten shillings. For a time, the demand for Cotswold rams seemed in danger of ailing off, but during the last two or three seasons there has been a reaction in their favour. CHAPTER II t SHORT WOOLLED SHEEP Jf ot much use in talking about the Kents, or the Wensleydale breeds of sheep, as there are none of either in this country, so we will plunge at once into the study of the great exponents of the true short-wools, the Down breeds ; and first of the true protagonist of the clan, the SOUTH-DOWN The true habitat of this charming sheep is the Downs of the county of Sussex. Having been a pupil of the late Wm. Rigden, of Hove, near Brighton, to whom I went for six months for the express purpose of studying the South-down « at home, . and having found him always ready to impart any information of which he was possessed I may say, I think without vanity, that I know what a South-down sheep is as well as any man not born among them, can know. The pleasantest six months I ever passed in my life were passed under Mr. Rigden's roof, and our daily visits to the ewes —for I fortunately arrived at Hove just as the ewes were lambing,— were full of interest. — 42 — A very curious thing struck rae almost the first day : the shepherd knew every ewe by sight, could name their sire and dam at a glance ; but that was SOUTH-DOWN RAM a mere trifle, compared with his skill in detecting any ewe with a tendency to neglect her newly born offspring; iu pouncing upon her briskly, though — 43 — gently and compelling her to discharge the duties of her position. Mr. Rigden often used to laugh at his first attempt to win honours at the R. A. Society's show of breeding stock. It was, I think, at Manchester he first exhibited, and with what glee he used to recite the speech of one of the brothers Webb who, looking at Mr. Pigden's best Southdown ram, cruelly told hiiu that « he had better tie it round his neck and give it a dip in the sea at Hove ! This was some time about 1843, or '44, and within five years of that time, Mr. Rigden was winning prize after prize all over the South of England, and at last, when the Grand Monarque, Jonas Webb, gave up exhibiting, Rigden rtlgntiX, facile princeps, over all the Southdown breeders, and as Prof. Wright- son says : * The Southdown race in its own district was long well maintained by the late Mr. Rigden, « though that is but tame praise from such a pen. Have my readers any idea of what the Downs in the South of En, land are like ? Stretching from the zveald (same as wold in Lincolnshire, and 7(>ald in German) runs a series of low hills, succeeding one another, like what the Ontario people call « Rolling- land ^, only more acute. These hills, downs (hi French dunes) are all situated on the chalk rock, which acts as an all pervading drain, so that within an hour or two after the heaviest rain the surface is as dry as it was before the rain fell. Owing to this — 44 — cool subsoil, the soft, nutritious herbage, though always short, never withers, and the closer it is fed off the denser and more succulent is the pasture. Naturally, one would not expect to find animals with broad briskets and large frames on such land as this, and, truly, the sheep of the South-downs are not large, in spite of the extra good feeding they receive as compared with the semi-starvation they used to be obliged to endure in the early part of the last century. Even now, the ordinary Sussex Down is small, and were it not for the high prices the wealthy people of the West-end of London and the visitors to the watering-places of the south coast are willing to pay for, as I said before, small joints, the breeding of this -^vle of sheep could never pay the farmer. The Ta- jurite weight of the best sheep in the London market is from 7 >< to 8 stones, of 8 fts. to the stone. You will see by the subjoined list of prices at the Islington cattle market how much size regulates the value of sheep there : to 8 8 9 10 10 No stone vember 12 th. Downs Scotch Downs .... 1900 ... $1. Irish Half-breds.. Downs Ewes 10 10 • • • I. ;? Half-breds.. 50 50 46 ?.8 35 39 24 to $J.26 — 45 — So you «e plainly that in proportion to the rise wetl7erf " '"""'' '''^ ""'" ' ^'""^ D°>-" The Scotch sheep mentioned in the above list are the four-year-old black-faced wethers, and bar rmgthe,rwa„t of fat, very fine mutton they are though I, probably from being brought up on !' prefer the Down meat. ^ "' m all the Down country, for it is to his earnest iJr •severance and skill that the old-fashioned Su^x Down small ,n size, bad in shape, long i„ th; „Sc bw at both ends, full of faults everywhere ex^ot I "> the leg, was first improved. "«- "eept The Southdown is unquestionably the fashionable sheep; George III having taken it up, p, ^ ^f . h,s „ob,hty . followed suit, and to-day many of the _.o.ng flocks of this breed belong to such men a' ^rd wT- .'^''"' <'' '"' '^"'^^ of R-'-ond LfOTd Walsingham, &c. ' Southdown mutton is close-grained, dark in colour, tender and juicy, and the proportion oTleZ Cher s phrase, « it dies well, « for there is always plenty of internal fat and such. ^ (i) Written in 1900. -46- No doubt this breed originally wore horns, but, by dint of selection, these have been « bred-out, » except that, here and there, slight lumps or slugs, as the shepherds call the:n, make their appearance : a clear case of « heredity. » I remember well, when I was young in the business, the well-known John Clayden, of Littlebury, pointing these slugs out to me in the forehead of a ram I had hired of Jonas Webb. As for the light forequarter, as Professor Wright- son observes, what else can be expected in a sheep the muscular development of whose hind-quarters, so necessary in an animal that had to climb such steep hills, necessarily implies the contraction of the fore-end. The Southdown seems to have an especial par- tiality to chalk soils and not too rich keep ; at least it soon alters both in form and wool when taken to other climes and other pastures. I remember well Lord Ducie, the fortunate owner of the « Seventh Duke of York» and other valuable bulls of the « Bates blood, » hiring a Southdown ram from Jonas Webb for loo guineas the season. He kept the same ram for three seasons, but the progeny of that ram was no more like the sire than I am to Hercules. The form of the lambs was loose and straggling, the head coarse, and the wool opened and what used to be called fl lashy. » An utter failure, owing entirely to the change from the short, scanty pasture of the I 1* — 4?- Downs with their free and bracing air bein^ exchanged for the close, confined cli.na'e ol the^": mefdll ' "' "" '"" """^^^ °' "" ^"'-'tt CHAPTER III. THE HAMPSHIRE-DOWN TI7E have now arrived at my own favourite breed : I am not going to pretend, as some have pre- tended, that this breed of sheep is absohitely free from all admixture of blood. It is a Down, empha- tically, and, no douk, its race has b-en improved by the selection of rams from the more refined tribes of the more Eastern hills. And if I am asked why I have so high an opinion of the qualities of the Hampshire-Downs as being the very sheep for this country, I would simply ask my readers to look over the following article, written for the « Journal of Agriculture », some years ago, but expressing my views of to-day as it did my views in 1883. I may as well say that, when farming in England, I kept a flock of 250 ewes, all but 20 of which were pure-bred Hampshire-Downs, the remainder South-Downs from Mr. Rigden's flock. The Hamp- shire-Downs were not fancy-bred sheep, but regu- lar farmer's sheep bought at the fairs in the county whence they take their name. Royal ist Prize Hampshire- Down Sliearl ingrewts (Hillh^^r^t flock ) — 49 — HAMPSHIRE-DOWNS AT ISLINGTON, F.NG. At the Christmas Show of the Smithfield Club, 1882, these sheep again made their mark. The ques- tion of their superiority as regards early maturity may now be considered as definitively settled. It is very much to be regretted that no man, no body of men has shown sufficient interest in the welfare of the agricultural population of the province to import a few of these most useful sheep. The price is not out of the way : 2igood ram lamb can be bought for ;^io, and ewes would cost about £^. 10 a piece. Not show sheep ; but honest farmers' stock. The ram should, of course, be selected from a family not too nearly related to the ewes. The following is an analysis of the live weights of the lambs exhibited at Islington ; three to each pen : Cotswolds 595 lbs. Leicester c c8 " Lincoln 6i5 k South-Downs c2 5 " Shropshires ac\ " Oxfords ^60 " Hampshire Downs 672 '' And from this list, I deduce the following most important facts : That the Hampshire-Down lambs were superior in weight to all the others, and not 4 — 50 — by a trifling amount either, as the next table will show : Weight of Hampshire-Down lambs 672 ft)S it i( ii (t = weight of Lotswold lambs + yy lbs. = ' " Leicester " + " Lincoln " " Southdown " *' Shropshires •' " Oxfords " 114 " + 56 " + 147 " + 221 " + 212 " And more ; while the Southdown 7vethers weighed 682 lbs, the Hampfehire-Down lambs weighed 672 ft)s ; the former having only 10 ft)s perpen^'of three, o- 3^ lbs each, to show for their twelve month's K.xl ! Again ; we see by the table tivo Hampshire. Down lambs weighed as much as three Shropshires^ and nearly as much as three Oxfords / Lastly, the pen of three Hampshire-Down lambs exceeded in weight the pen of three Southdown ewes (3 years old) by 56 tbs ! ! ! The difference between the weight of the Hampshire-Downs and the South- downs I was prepared to see, but I must confess I was astonished at the amazing superiority of the former over the Shropshires and the Oxfords. Judging from my own past experience of sheep in the state of fatness in which they made their appear- ance at the Smithfield Club Show, I believe I am not wrong in taking 65 % of live weight as the i _ 51 _ weight of the four quarters ; which would make their vahie in the London market, at present prices, ^7.6 sterling, or $36.00 i. e. 1882 ! Most of my readers ■# o 3. < X know, by this time, that in the English markets, all cattle, &c. are sold by hand, and the price of — 52 — mutton is so high now in that country, that a good Down wether weighing, when slaughtered, 20 ft)s a quarter, is worth one shilling sterling a pound, or $2o, as he stands. I have no hesitation in saying that as long as prices keep up to what they are now) no more profitable system of farming can be offered to the Canadian than the breeding and fattening of sheep for exportation, if the sort of sheep suited to the trad of the west-end of London be selected. Hampshire-Downs lambed in March, and modera- tely pushed from weaning, should weigh, by the time the first boat leaves for England in the Spring, something like 12 siones, or 96 ibs, and would bring in the neighbourhood of twenty-four dollars, and there is only one secret in their management in this country : rape^ rape^ rape, from the 20th of June to the end of the season. It would add at least one-third to the yield of our farms. Well, now that the Hon. Mr. Cochrane and his son have been good enough, — may I say, owing to my repeated prayers ? to import a fair number of ewes, lambs, and rams from the best flocks in En- gland, I think there is a fair prospect of myspecial favourite being, before long, widely known through- out the province ; and they only require to be known to be appreciated. As for the original old West-country sheep, whence the Hampshire-Down derive one side at least of their origin, we know pretty well what — 53 — they were like. Some of them had horns ; all were more or less ragged in appearance ; their legs were long and carcase nairow, and the faces and legs white. « These sheep », says Yonatt, « not only pre- vailed on the Wiltshire Downs, and were much and deservedly valued there, but were found in consi- derable numbers in North-Devon, Somersetshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. If they were rather slow in fattening, they were excellent fold- ing sheep, and enabled more grain to be grown in Wiltshire than in any other county in England. In 1837, these Wiltshires have all passed away. » They were crossed again and again with the South- Downs until every trace of the old breed disap- peared, and a useful variety of the Downs remain a very fine flock of which I remember to have seen at Wenvoe Castle, Glamorganshire, the family seat of one of the Jenners. At the Oxfordshowof the Royal, 1840, these mo- dified sheep were shown as • West-country Downs, » and are reported to have been not unlike the pre- sent type, but smaller, looser in general build, and lighter in colour. No doubt the modern refined Hampshire-Down, derives its improved appearance from the cross with Jonas Webb's South-Down rams, effected by the well-known Mr. Humphries, of Oak-Ash, who hired three of the Babraham sheep at 60 guineas ($300.00) each iqx the season, I^amb-rams were first ^scd bv — 54 — the same Mr. Humphries, for service, but with great caution, only 20 ewes being allowed to each lamb, though the number soon rose, as I myself have had nearly 60 ewes served by the same ram-lamb, and almost every one of them « stood ». The modern Hampshire-Down is the heaviest of the Down breeds, and au reste^ is only excelled by the Lincoln and though rarely, by the Cotswold. My own draft ewes, four year-olds, used to weigh somewhere about from 96 to 104 lbs. the four-quar- ters, and that within a month or six weeks after weaning the lambs. .Now, Prof. Wrightson will show any one who will visit the College at Down- ton, near Salisbury, ram-lambs that will weigh a hundred pounds the carcase in the month of July ! Lambed in the middle of January, or there abouts, the ram-lambs are commonly sold, for service in August and September, i. e., at seven or eight months old. The old-fashioned ugly head of this breed, with its offensively prominent nose, has almost entirely disappeared under the influence of the Sussex cross. The face can hardly be too dark in colour, but the wool, must be white ; a dark tinge round the poll is fatal, and the ears must be free from any marbling and rather long, with a tendency to fall outwardly, which gives an air of width to the poll. The head has a good cover of wool both between the ears and on the cheek. As to the fine wool and — 55 — the Roman-nose, they are as clearly hereditary and derived from the old horned sheep, as colour and the quality of the flesh are derived from the South- Down, '•Knowing the susceptibility of breeders,* says Professor Wrightson, « it may be well to state here that when we refer to the mixed characteristics of the Hampshire-Down, we do not mean to cast any slur upon the breed as it now exists. The Hamp- shire Down has been too long established, and too long bred inter se (within itself), to be now charged with being of mixed origin. Every race of sheep has been crossed, with the exception of the South- down, and possibly the Leicester. » No sheep does better within the hurdles than the sheep we are now considering, that is, unlike the Cotswold, he will stand being folded on rape, turnips, &., in large numbers. I remember well the numbers of the Western flocks, as they left the iciq, ^nibs and ewes, on the hilly Downs near Andover . In Kent, Surrey, and other S. E. counties of Engl? nd, the lot use to go to fold at sunset, on the fallows, and never leave it till the dew was off in the morning ; and with nothing to eat all that time, they had to pick up their living on the downs in the day-time as well as they could. The stocking of the down-farms, though, is now very difiFereut. Many more sheep are kept on a If -56- hundred acres than were kept in my day, for the method of feeding has been entirely changed. Every autumn, I used to go to Ewell or Guildford fair, in Surrey, to buy seventy or eighty three-year-old Hampshire- Down wethers to fatten for the use of my father's household. And such mutton it was ! Now, people have to be contented with tegs^ i. e., 12 to 15 months old sheep, but owing to the way in which they have been fed from their early youth, their meat, I am told, is by no means to be despised. But more of this when we come to the feeding of the flock. When speaking of the useful properties of the Hampshire-Downs, it must not be forgotten that among them is their value for crossing. The Oxfords, you will remember are the descendants of a Hamp- shire-Down ewe and a Cotswold ram,and all the prize- winners in the cross-bred classes of the Smithfield Club Show in London, have had a Hampshire-Down on one side or the other. CHAPTER III OXFORDSHIRE-DOWNS These, in reality middle-wooled sheep, which, for brevity's sake we shall here call « Oxfords, are as we said at the end of the last chapter, the product of the Hampshire-Down ewe by a Cotswold ram. The rule in breeding, as we said in the introduc ram should, ,f there is a distinction between him and the ewe, the higher bred of the two. In this case, no one can doubt that the blood of the Cotswold is more free from foreign alh...o than the blood of the Hampshire-Down ; but there is more in this arrange- ment than a question of blood. The Hampshire- Down ewe of the period when the cross was first attempted, 1836 or 1837, was about the best nurse of all the ewes then bred, and that alone must have been sufficient to induce Mr. Samuel Druce, of ojfL^J"?^'' "^'^ .^''^"°' °^ ^^" production of the Oxford by the crossing of Cotswold and Hampshire, -58- Down blood is worthy of attention. For though he speaks of them r;; o^t by a Cotswold ram out of ' M; r,, Jfli' Mm: a Southdown ewe, it is pretty clear that at that date, 1833, the term Southdown included all the Down- breeds from Sussex, through Hampshire, into — 59 — Wiltshire ; in fact this was the case, to „,v own knowledge, as late as 1840. In his letter to Mr. Ihilip P„sy, afterwards President of the Roval Agncultnral Society, and one of the mo- practical of all the "gentlemen-fanners,. I ever met it is true Mr. Druce speaks in this loose manner ; but in a subsequent letter, addressed to Mr. W. C. Spooner he IS more precise, and speaks of the cross as fol- lows : "The foundation of this sheep was beam about the year 1833, by using a neat, well-mlie Cotswold.ram with Hampshire-Down ewes. .. Kven at that date, the Hampshire-Downs were nothin.^ like what we see nowadays, for it was subsequent to this that Webb's rams were used by Mr. Humphrey They were, probably, what I recollect them to have been when I first visited the Surrey fairs ; loose- built Roman-nosed, big, upstanding sheep, with plenty of black about the head, and with no parti- cular merits of form about them ; but hardy-good- doers, carrying a vast amount of lean-meat about them, particularly on the saddle, and good « butchers' sheep .., 1. e., with plenty of internal fat and lieavN- pelts. The Oxfords were first called bv the mi^ed nai.u- '. Down-Cotswolds,.. but before long acquired their present name of Oxfords ; for the shire has been pretty generally dropped, and so much the better Not^ many years ago, the cross in the blood was still easi.y distinguished by the mottled nose ; indeed we have seen it in pens of the Oxfords at Mile-End' — 6o — within the last ten years ; but at the last show held there, the muzzles of the Oxfords exhibited were of a uniform brown shade. In the early days of the Oxfords the carcase weight of these sheep was thought satisfactory if, at from 13 to 15 months old, it came up to 76 lbs. Prof. Wrightson says that, nowadays, an improved Hampshire-Down, from a good flock, should weigh from 85 to 95 pounds, carcase-weight, at ten months, and that without forcing ; and that at Britford fair, on August I2th, wether lambs are of- ten seen to fe^tch 60s. ($14.40) a head, he himself having sold icx) on that day, in 1883, for 73s. each- ($17.52) ; but prices for meat, at that date, were higher than they are now, though at present prices a 96 lbs. lamb — more properly teg — would be worth 72s. What used to take 13 to 15 months to bring about is now done in 8 or 10, for the modern principle seems to be to feed the land by feeding the sheep, instead of using so much artificii .d, and the quantity of cake and pulse and grain given to the flock is something that would make the Cul- leys and the Bakewells stare. Shropshire Shearlinjr-ewes (HiUhurst flock. ) CHAPTER IV SHROPSHIRES When first we made acquaintance with the ShroD- called whlh~ ^''^P^I-'-D""- they were th"^ called, which was a mistake, as there is no such hmg as a fleece. This is a clear indica- tion that Leicester or some other Long-wooled breed was introduced to the Shropshire flocks at some remote period. The symptom appears as scro- fula or other blood poisoning does in the third or fourth generation of mankind. The way, however, these "open., coats have been made exceptional brings us back to our first point — viz, the skill of modern flockmasters. When the lamb appears to be a halfbred, with a mottled face, whether it be male or female, it is at once discarded from the flock and fed for the butcher. In this has con. sisted the judgment, care, and skill of the modern breeders of Shropshires, who have brought their flocks to their present state of uniformity. There ait six or seven leading breeders whose names may be mentioned, as they have been so consistent among themselves that their flocks are nearly all alike in uniformity of type and general character. These are Messrs, Crane & Tanner, Shrawardine ; Messrs. Minion, Montford ; Mr. John Evans, Uffingon (all of whom live near Shrews- — 68 — bury). Then, there are Mr. Thomas Mansell, Haring- son, near Shifnal, and his son at Dunmaston, near Bridgenorth ; Mr. W. J. Hock, Sutton Maddock ; and Mr. T. Feen, Downton. who believes in size. Mr. John Darling, Beaudesert, near Rugeley, is now the possessor of the descendants of the Marquis of Anglesea's old Cannock Chase- flock above men- tioned and he is showing much spirit in endea- voring to develop it so that it shall be second to none, either in Staffordshire or Shropshire. Mr. Joseph Beach, too. The Hatton, Breewood, near Wolverhampton, inherited a flock that has been bred on the lines settled down upon by the older breeders above mentioned. I remember having a conversation with the late Mr. Joseph Beach some fifteen or sixteen years ago, when he was enthusi- astic m favour of the larger size and uniformity of colour. The way this flock has been proved by selections is alike creditable to father and son. It was indeed long before the Shropshires were admitted to the honour of a separate class. I remember well their first appearance in the ring ; it was at the Gloucester show of the Royal, in 1853^ but they were then lumped in with other sheep, as "short-wools, not being Southdowns. « According to Prof. Wrightson, it was not till i860 that they were assigned separate classes, the type being then supposed to be fixed, and it was not till they had enjoyed the honour for two years, or so, that the Oxfords and the Hampshire-Downs won the same -69- privileg^e. As a rule, the vSliropshires head the list of the sheep classes at the Royal shows, as far as numbers go; at the Windsor exhibition of the Royal there were of Leicesters ....... 41 entries Border-Leicesters .31 '* Cotswolds 60 *' Lincolns 58 " Oxfords 82 " Shropshires 212 " If Southdowns 123 " Hampshire -Downs 78 " In the Royal Agriculf lal Society's magazine for 1853, in the notice of the show of that year, we find the Shropshires thus described : « They have no horns, faces and legs are gray or spotted ; neck thick, with an excellent scrag ; head well shaped, neither small nor large ; breast broad and deep ; back straight, with good carcase ; hind- quarters not so wide as the Southdows ; leg straight, with good bone. They are very hardy, thrive well on moderate keep, and are readily prepared for mar- ket, the tegs weighing on an average from 80 to 100 pounds each, the carcase. Thus the Shrop- shire sheep, as contrasted with its maternal ance.'^ tor which grazed on the Longmynd Hills, had during sixty years doubled its dead weight. « Writ, ting in 1858, Prof. Tanner says : « Onl)- a few years 1 — 70 — since, any mention of the Shropshire-Down sheep raised an enquiry, even among intellectual farmers, as to their character, few knowing anything about them. » How altered is that state of things to-day ! Every one interested in farming, from the plains of Australia to the sea- washed rocks of Gal way, knows the Shropshire ; he is valued everywhere as a tho- roughly trust worthy sheep that will do on poor keep and amply repay his owner for any extra food bestowed upon him ; in fact, if I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes ; that is, if I were farming, and could not get Hampshire-Downs to breed from, I would take up with Shropshires. SUFFOLK DOWNS Any one travelling through the Eastern counties of England, from London to Norwich, in the early thirties must have observed, unless the deadly dulness of the country sent him to sleep, on the borders between Suffolk and Norfolk, a number of dark-coloured, rough, long-legged sheep feeding about on the barren heaths that border on the two counties. They were the first « wild-sheep >, so to speak, I had ever seen, so it is no wonder that, accustomed as I was to the smoother, more comfortable-looking flocks of the Southern coun- ties, the Suffolk Health-sheep should have fixed themselves ineradicably in my mind. How great — 71 i m was my astonishment, then, to see by llic rciM>rts of the Royal's meeting, a few years ago, that these < rough, aboriginal sheep, had been so far improved that they had not only been taken np by some of the leading breeders of East-Anglia, but that, owing I — 72 — believe to the exertions of the late Marquis of Bristol, the Suffolk-Down had been admitted to a place in the Royal's annual exhibition. Arthur Young, in his tour, mentions these sheep, and from his account it would seem that, as long ago as 1790, they were considered to afford excellent mutton, though the wool can never have been good for much. However, as far as I can learn, not having the flock book at hand, there are six volumes of it extant ; the Southdown has been the great medium of the improvement of the Suffolk ; but whither have the horns vanished ? for horns they certainly had when I saw them 65 years ago. The Suffolk Sheep-Society thus describes the Suffolk ; according to the points laid down by the best judges of the district : « Head hornless ; face blarV and long with a reasonably fine muzzle, especiailj' in the ewe ; ears a medium length, black and fine in texture ; eyes bright and full ; neck moderately long and well set on ; shoulders broad and sloping ; chest wide and deep ; back and loin long, level, and well-united ; tail broad and well set up ; ribs long and springing well from the spine ; legs and feet straight and black, with fine flat bone ; woolled down to the knees and hocks ; fleece moderately short. » The face of the Suffolk is as black as the Scotch sheep known as the « Black-faced ; » it has no woo IB U S M o o .a *^ V ID o Q — 73 — on the head or between the ears. In my young^er days, there was a butcher, named Allen, who lived at the [corner of Mount Street and South-Audley Street, close to Hyde-Park, London, who killed no other sheep than the Suffolk, and made his fortune by them. He had a very traitorous animal in the form of a wether, who used to go with his drover to bring the sheep home from old Smithfield market. Now, all animals have a dislike to enter a slaughter-house on account of the smell of blood ; in order to induce the market-sheep to enter, the wretch used to walk in at the head of the drove, and of course, as sheep always follow their leader, the rest, in perfect innocence, entered the slaughter- house, and when they were all safe inside, the half door was closed ; immediately on hearing the bang of the door, the villain bounded on to the backs of his betrayed friends, jumped over the half-door, and, leaving the other sheep to the mercy of the knife, gravely looked up in the drover's face in expectation of his reward which, in the form of a piece of bread, was awarded him at once. A saddle of one of these sheep was worth eatin THE DORSKT-HOkX No one who has ever seen a well-bred Dorset- Horn can mistake a specimen of the breed for any other kind. All other Down sheep have short wool i 74 — and black or brown faces and legs, but in the Dorset we see a survival of a white-faced, horned, short- woolled race that may have inhabited the chalk Downs of Dorsetshire for many a hundred years before Caesar landed on the shores of Kent. No doubt the old Wiltshire horned sheep and the Dorset were nearly related ; but the Wiltshire was early crossed with the Southdown until most of its characteristics disappeared, whereas the Dorset, as far as we know, has had no cross at all, but has been brought to its present state of perfection by selection alone. Why Dorsets should differ from all other breeds of sheep in the time of their bringing forth their lambs, is a puzzle ; all we can say is that the first breeders of the present stock probably put the ewes to the ram earlier and earlier every year, until it became a habit with them to « seek the male » be- times. For a Dorset ewe will take the ram in April, if she gets a chance, so that parturition will take place in September, and allowing, as we used to allow in England, the lamb to be killable at three months, Christmas and New- Year's tide will not have passed before it will be on the market, and sell, at least it used to sell in our time, for a guinea ($5.00) a quarter. The ewes, from what we gathered from a butcher who used to kill our sheep on the » home-farm, » — as the farm is called in England that is kept in — 75 — the landlord's hands for the supply of the house — the Dorset ewes, we say, used to weigh about twelve stones, or 96 lbs., when killed after having borne the last crop of lambs, i. e., at about five years old. In 1840, Youatt described the Dorsets as entirely white, the face long and broad, the shoulders low but wide, back straight, chest deep, loins broad, legs longish, and the bone small. They were esteemed good folders, yielding well flavoured mut- ton, and averaging at three years old, from 16 to 20 lbs. a quarter. What a change has taken place during the last 50 years ! In 1890, Mr. John Kidner's first prize wethers, at the Smithfield Club Show, weighed, live weight 224 lbs. each, say, 36 lbs. a quarter ; the wool, in 1840, weighed, on the average, 3 ^4 lbs. a fleece, whereas, now, the fleeces of the ewe flock will run from 5 to 6 pounds, and of the rams from 8 to 12 lbs, these weights being taken after the fleece has been washed on the sheep's back. « Dorset ewes are capital mothers, and more pro- lific than any other breed of sheep. They will take the ram at almost any season, and if well fed before the time of copulation, will often bring two and not very rarely three at a birth. Very few of the rames survive their lamb-hood, but, according to the invariable practice in England, they are almost -76- all castrated ten days or so after birth ; but we must make one exception to the general rule : the Hamp- shire men used, in our time, to leave the male lambs as nature built them till the month of August, when the operation was performed, and happy is the man who visited the county in those days, for he stood a chance, at any of the country inns, of tasting that delicous dish emphatically designated « lamb's fry» not the liver, &c., but the « orchids. » We dined off it, we remember at Wallingford, the day Andover won the Derby : in 1854, if our memory serves us. There used to be plenty of Dorsets in the Isle of Wight, whence come the early supplies of lamb for the London market ; Ireland has a good many, and, of late, several consignments have been received in Ontario, Mr. William Rolph being the chief impor- ter. In 1889, Mr. T. S. Cooper, of Pennsylvania, landed 153 Dorsets, including all the first-prize winners of the Royal show of that year. The i-itrliest, or house-lambs as they are called, are treated in a peculiar way. A barn is set apart for the purpose of rearing them, and no expense is Spared. The building is divided into « Coops », in which the lambs are kept in separate lots according to their ages. Every evening, the ewes are turned into their young ones who speedily recognise each its_own dam. .A.fter passing the night together, the ewes are sent to a fold of rape or turnips in the — 77 — morning, after the dew is oj. About ten o'clock, the ewes whose lambs have been sold, are driven into the barn, and held while the other ewes lambs empty their udders. At noon, the real motliers are driven into the lambs again for an hour or two, and at four the poor foster-mothers are again drained. We were told, many years ago, by a skilful practi- tioner of this plan, that the grand secret of success is to keep the barn at a regular temperature, any material variation of temperature, particularly up- wards, being always attended by a serious loss of life among the lambs. Of course, there are a multitude of other breeds of sheep besides those we, with the assistance of pro- fessor Wrightson, have tried to describe, but as the>- are chiefly local, and by no means likely to be met with in this province, we do not think it necessary to enlarge upon their characteristics. II f CHAPTER V 'f I MANAGEMENT OF THE FLOCK Jt may be laid down, as a general rule, that in the Province of Quebec every farmer, that keeps sheep at all, breeds his own. In England, we may say en passant, it is not the case ; many farmers, especially in the hilly district of the north, breed from large flocks of ewes, but as they never keep male lambs after the month of September, it is clear that other farmers, those who buy their lambs, do not breed but feed. And the same is the practice in the Down counties ; in Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, &c., hundreds of thousands of well-bred wether lambs are to be met with at the Autumn fairs, the breeders only retaining the ewe lambs to refresh the flocks when the older ewes are drafted, generally at the age of four or five years. These the farmers of the turnip lands buy and fatten, after taking one crop of lambs from them. But. here, it is not so. In the great majority of instances, what does one find to be the custom as regards sheep-breeding ? We regret to say that if there is any animal on the farm that ma\ be said to be neglected, it is that valuable animal, the sheep. ?OBir — 79 — Originally, yes, up to very late times, sheep were kept in this province for the sake of their fleece ; as for the meat they afforded, that was quite a th'in«r that did not matter ; it was used somehow or other in the farm-house, or perhaps a few Iambs were sold to the butcher ; but what lambs ? Punv things that were never fattened, that, at best, weighed twenty pounds or so the carcase ; how should thev weigh more, when the ewe herself had to live on what she could pick up in the corners of the field, in the bush, and on that pasture, ox pacage, to be found on the stubbles alter three years successive grain-crops^ Did the ewes die of old age, or what became of them ? At all events, if they proved barren and were killed, who could have eaten their flesh ; as for fat, it was non-extant ! Still it goes on ; every fall we see, under our windows in Sherbrooke street, troops of lambs, on their road to the butcher's pastures ; ram-lambs, almost invariably, with their tails uncut and their orchids where nature placed them ! Again ; what is the meaning of this tendency to put ewe-lambs, perhaps not more than six or seven months old, to the ram ? VVe remember well when we expressed surprise to Mr. Mark Dawes, of Lower Lachine, at his following up this practice that his reply was : « Oh ! it would not pav to keep them a whole vear doing nothing. « If ample frames are to be perpetuated, females of all breeds or races must be allowed time to mature those — 8o — frames, before being obliged to submit to the pains of travail, after having had to support another indi- vidual for the five months of gestation. Consequently, it is not consonant with the laws of breeding to put ewes to the ram before they have obtained the age of eighteen months, so that they may bring forth for the first time when about two years old. Not very many years ago, it was the practice in England to postpone the first parturition of the ewe till she attained the age of three years ; but that was in the days when ewes were allowed to get along as they could ; now that ewes are care- fully treated and well fed, the universal practice in all that country is to put the ewe to the ram at the age we have indicated. And, now, let us consider how we are to celebrate the nuptials of the ewe and her mate : any how ? By no means. Several questions have to be asked, and answered, before we can decide. First, do we want our flock to produce lambs that shall be an improvement of themselves in frame or fleece, or in both ? If so, it behoves us to be very careful in the selection of the ram. If the fleece of the ^we has a tendency to be loose and open, select a ram with a close wool. Should the ewe fall off too rapidly from the rump, choose a ram whose rump continues level as far as possible towards the setting-on of the tail. In fact, not to — 8: — delay our readers too long over this matter, select a ram that will correct the faults perceptible in your ewes. As for the age of the ram, that will depend entirely on circumstances. If bred by a man who knows his business, and well-fed from its earliest days, there is no earthly reason why a ram-lamb of from seven to eight months old should not perform the functions of its office for, at any rate, 40 ewes. The practice is common in all the improved Hamp- shire-Down flocks of to-day as it was in simular flocks in 1850, and if the continuous practice of 50 years among the best breeders of sheep in England is not enough to warrant its soundness, we cannot see what is enough. Do you want your ewes to drop twins ? Well, it is not to be done by keeping them on short rations ; they must be prepared for the service of the ram by careful feeding for at least three weeks or a month beforehand, and the best food for that purpose is rape. How many ewes should be assigned to one ram ? That, again, depends upon the age of the ram. A well fed shearling ram can easily serve 60 ewes. Now, it is a matter of great importance that the time of service should extend over as short a period of time as possible ; and, for this reason, the shorter will be the time from the first lamb dropped to the last ; and if every sheep-breeder had attended the 6 '"^^^^^I^W^ ^ MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 |50 156 2.2 1^ |4.0 2.0 1.8 J APPLIED IN/MGE Ir 1653 East Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 (716) 482 - 0300- Phone (716) 288 - 5989 - Fa« USA — 82 — nightly lambing fold for five weeks, as we did in 1853, when, for what reason we know not, our ewes occupied all that time in getting through their work, they would spare no pains in shortening their weary labour. There is one method by which the time of service may be prevented from extending over too long a period : use a teaser. A teaser is either an old worn-out ram, or a ram-lamb-the latter for choice- that is turned among the ewes but is prevented from service bv a piece of sacking sewn on to the wool of his shoulders and extending so far down between his legs that his amatory propensities are baulked. Cruel, of course, but effective. The poor thing wanders about among the ewes, exciting their passions,and that so effectively that, when the Sultan himself is introduced into their society, the amiable creatures submit to his embraces without reluct- ance, and many services in the first four-and-twenty hours are the result, 25 not being an uncommon number. As it is highly desirable that the ram be not exhausted by his arduous, we were always accus- tomed to put the ram with the ewes at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon ; he remained with them all night, and at 8 o'clock in the morning he was remov^ed to a small hurdled off space, away from his spouses, where he was well fed on cake, grain, and pease, with a little green-meat-clover, vetches, i -83- &c.,— and restored to his sultanas at 4 p. m. as before. i In order to know what ewes htive been served, the ram should be smeared, on the brisket, night and morning, with « ruddle ^ scientifically called « sesqui- oxide of iron », and all the ewes that have the red on their backs should be drafted into another field. In about three weeks, those that have not stood to the service will return, as it is called, when the ram should be re-introduced to them, and that will end his labours for the season. And how shall we divide our flock of ewes ? In accordance with their age, of course. Those that have already given birth to lambs will, or ought to go in one lot, those that are pregnant for the first time in another, and for this reason : the elder females must of necessity be fairly well kept during the winter, but the first year's ewes must be kept still better. Not, by any means, that thev should, either of them, be made fat, for besides the fact that fat ewes almost invariably produce small lambs, we must not forget that the parturition of fat females of every description of stock, as well as of human beings, is always attended with danger. Keep the ewes, then, in good condition, but not too full fed. A little clover-hay, some pease-haulm, a few oats, and water at command, will see them safely through the winter. -84- In England, at least in the parts of England with which we ate best acquainted, it is not the custom of shepherds and others connected with the breed- ing of sheep to talk of a two-year-old or three-year- old, but th<^ age of a sheep is mentioned as con- nected with its teeth, as thus : A teg, in some parts a hog or hoggett, is a year- ling sheep before ilf is shorn. A two-tooth is a sheep from 1 2 to 15 months old until it, at 22 to 24 months, puts up another pair, when it becomes a four-tooth sheep. At three years, it becomes a six-tooth, and at four a full-mouthed, with all its eight teeth complete. However, though this is a tolerably accurate ac- count of the dentition of the sheep, it varies consi^ derably from various causes. When a sheep begins to lose its teeth we used to call it a « broken-mouth » ; in Cambridgeshire, a ewe that has lost teeth goes by the name « a crone », but in all well managed flocks it has long ceased to be the habit to keep ewes after the third crop of lambs ; they are either fattened off by their proprietor, or else sold to the farmers of the non-breeding districts at the autumn fairs. We should have mentioned that the reason why some farmers of apparently equally good soils do not breed sheep, but prefer buying from others that do not, to all appearances, occupy preferable 1 i m -85- farms, admits of a very clear definition : a farm, even all soils on any one farm, may not be suitable for sheep-breeding, but will fatten sheep very prof- itably. A very costly experience taught us this lesson, and we have never forgotten it : many years ago, in England, we tool: a farm of between three and four hundred acres, and invested a large sum of money in the purchase of ewes to stock it with ; for it lay in a lovely exposure towards the south, and looked to be the very spot for breeding early lambs, more particularly as it had a chalk substratum under the whole it. The ewes lambed in the spring — lots of lambs, — but an overwhelming proportion of them were dead in their mother's womb ; noc only that, but eighty-five of the ewes died too ; that is thirty per cent of the flock ! And the only consolation we got was a question from c e of our amiable neigh- bours : « Did no one tell >uu that on that farm the ewes always lost their lambs ? » No one told us anything pbout it, or we should have done what we did afterwards, i. e., fattened off our ewes that were left and never bred another lamb on that farm. A few turnips, or mangels, will do the ewes no harm, if the quantity is limited to five or six pounds a head dp-Hr^ but beware of giving too many swedes, — a nast\ .^perience of ours again — ar\6\ma.n^e\- leaves are said to be dangerous for in-lamb ewes, though why they are so we do not see. The great thing is to get the ewes to eat food that contains plenty of nitrogen, such as clover-hay, pease-haulm, a few — 86 — pease as well, and a trifle of linseeJ-cake, commonly called oil-meal^ which ' "^ tend to keep the bowels open, and produce a co afortable, satisfied feeling all over the ewe's body. Of course, we should prefer giving the seed of flax, crushed and mixed with chaffed oat or other straw ; but that will come with time ; at present, farmers have no linseed bruisers, and if the seed is ground between the stones, too much of the oil will be wasted, unless the seed is mixed with a large proportion of grain of other kinds, and that is not only troublesome, but renders it necessary to give a greater quantity of expensive food than need be. (i) Sheep, just off the grass, do not care to eat dry food, such as chaff whether of hay or of straw ; but as soon as the frosty mornings arrive, they will run to their troughs to see what they contain, and their breakfast will not detain them long. We cannot bear to see the little pains taken here, as a general rule, to preserve that valuable food, peases-traw or haulm. If the crop is not allowed to stand too long before being cut, and is carried wiihout rain, pease-sti w is, in our opinion, more valuable than timothy-hay, at least for sheep. But it must not be forgotten that, like hay made of ' I ) The fact that, out of loo grains of flaxseed, given to cattle or sheep uHcrushed, at least 80 will be passed undigested in the faces, should deter farmers from wasting such valuable food. 1 -87- vetches, one shower of rain on pease-hauhn comp- aratively speakinj^ spoils it, especially if it is not thoroughly dry before it is put into the barn. It is astonishing how much cold sheep will bear provided their coats atf^ free from wet. Good sheds A MODEL SHHKl* R.\CK. will of course be provided for the ewes, and the}- need not be absolutely closed, as sheep will prefer lying about in the yard attached to the sheds even in very cold weather. Troughs, and roomy ones, for grain 88 — and chafF, should be numerous, but any common wood will serve for their manufacture. Pity that pease-haulm cannot be chaffed, but the quantity of sand and small grit, that is usually carried into the barn with it, blunts the knives of the chaff-cutter and renders the job not only tedious but expensive. A very useful rack invented by the well-known M. Eugene Casgrain is represented in the engrav- ing : the following is a description of it, from the original in th^ Journal (f Agriculture : « This rack is circular, and is made of two ranks of bars, with a hollow receptacle in the middle, in which is placed a c6ne, which makes the fodder thrown into it spread all around equally. • The rack is 5>^ feet in diameter and 4)4 feet high. There are twenty-two bars in the exterior rank, so that the same number of sheep can feed at the rack at once. The bars are i j4 inch in diameter, round, and so inserted in the sockets that they can easily be turned round and round. There is an interval of 7 inches between the exterior and the interior bars ; the latter are twenty-three in number, one inch through, and 4 inches apart. Within the interior rank of bars is a wooden cone, 3 feet high, and 3^ feet in diameter at the base. This cone, with the tackle that fastens the bars to the top of the rack, forms the receptacle for the fodder. A sort of raised shelf, three inches wide, is fastened to the top and bottom of the rack, around the outer rank of bars, and completes the whole ~ 89 - « The advantages of this rack are th-se : its circular shape gives each sheep its own place without annoy- ance to his neighbours. For it is evident that they only approach one another as regards their heads, and the further one looks towards their hind-quar- ters, the more distant does each sheep get from his neighbours. This arrangement secure ewe-lambs and the in-lamb ewes from being hurt by being jostled by others. The bars of the outer range moving easily prevent the sheep from rubbing the wool off their necks. If the ewes pass alongside of the bars in a hurry, their mobility in the sockets prevents the e-^^es from being hurt. If the precaution is taken of placing the rack under a trap-door in the floor of the hay-loft, no rubbish can fall on the fleece of the sheep, which is thus kept perfectly clean. If, instead of fodder, roots are given to the sheep, the bottom of the rack, with its 3 inch wide shelf, is there ready to receive the roots. The interior bars are near enough together to prevent the sheep from pulling out the hay or other fodder and trampling it under foot ; and the distance between the bars, four inches, will not allow them to drag it out except mouthful by mouthful. » An extra prize was awarded to this rack at the exhibition held at Montreal in the year 1883, and we think it well worthy of being reproduced here. » Notes. Don't feed your ewes, in winter, well one day and give them half rations the next : they will — 90 — very likely gor^e themselves the third clay and perhaps abort : we have heard of such things hap- pening. We see in some of our exchanj^es that it has become a not uncommon thing to shear the lambs in tiic late fall : a dangerous practice with the ewe- tegs, for it is reported to us that many have died from the deprivation of their warm coat. A dog in the ewes' prei.'ises should be shot at once ; he has clearly no business there. He m^.y not have come to kill, but his presence is enougli to fnVhten the ewes out of iheir small wits, and but too likely lamb-slipping follows, though the ewe may go nearly up to her time. For goodness sake don't let your in-lamb ewes wander about loose in the deep snow in February and March, at any time indeed. How oitcn do we see ewes heavy m lamb in the road near the farm- house ; a sleigh passes, the ewes take fright, dart to the side of the road, plunge into the untrodden snow in the ditch, and, unless the man in the sleigh is merciful and helps the poor thing, her funeral peal will soon be ringing. By the bye, we forgot to say, but every sheep- breeder knows it already, that a ewe goes 5 calendar months with lamb, say 22 weeks, on the average. For goodness sake don't grudge sheep in regard — 91 — to litter : a dry bed is everytliing^ for a sheep of any kind, how much more then is it needed by the in- lamb ewe ! When do you intend to have your ewes lamb- down ? That you must ai range according to cir- cumstances, remembering one thing : ewes that have been accustomed, for their first two pregnancies, to lamb in April, will not, because you put the ram with them in ..\ugust, oblige you by taking him at once ; the odds are, that it you do so, the ewes will come into season one by one, the general impreg- nation lasting ve-y likely five weeks, to say nothing of the bother of those who * return . . You will not neither will your shepherd — if you keep one— find five or six weeks attendance, o'nights, in the lamb- ing shed by any means pleasant. We always attended to our ewes ourselves, though we had a first-rate Sussex shepnerd, and tht climate in which we then farmed was by no means so stern as that of the province of Quebec. A very senr,ible piece of advice is given by Mr. Ca,>grain, refering to the danger incurred by the ewes in jostling one the other in going through the door of the lambipg-shed. He recommends that the sill should be raised fifteen inches above the floor, and that there she ild be no approach to it except by a little bridge, wit^iout rails, only wide enough for two sheep to pass at once ; the exit of — 92 — the ewes will take up more time if thus arranged, but it will not be so likely to cause accidents. Prof. Wrightson says, with perfect reason, that -< with half a pound of hay and ten or twelve pounds (i) of turnips,ewes during pregnancy require no cake or other expensive food. True ; but that would not suit ewes in this country and climate ; for the ewes he speaks of lambed in early January, and in fortun- ate Southern England there is a good bite for them in the meadows and on the Downs, all the time of their pregnancy ^ere, we have no such advantage, the trifle of cake a day we recommend, 4 oz. a head, will not cost much, and the outlay will be well repaid by the good state of health it will help to ensure to the ewes. Mr. Casgrain does not approve of the litter and dung, &c., being allowed to accumulate for months under the sheep, as, he says, is the practice of many farmers, and therein we agree with him, though in the severer months of winter no deleterious emana- tions can possibly escape from the bedding. (..; But he goes on to say, that « the fresh manure will be better ; » how it can be better that the other when the other has lost none of its good qualities, we do not see. (0 But, as we observed before, beware of too many turnips. (2) The pressure of the weight of the sheep will prevent any heating. — 93 — But we must not forgei the case of the yearling ewes, just now in lamb for the first time. These will of course require better keep than the older ones, as will also the tegs, or lam^s of the year. CHAPTER VI. DRAFTING THE FLOCK The first operation after the lambs are weaned and the ewes are preparing for the introduction to married hfe, is the drafting of the flock. This if you want your flock to gain any place at exhibitions sales, &c., must be carried out in the most hard- hearted manner. But of, say, 60 ewes there will probably be 16 two-tooths. 16 four-tooths, 16 six-tooths. 14 full-mouthed, and older 60 and you will have no difficulty in finding among them at least a dozen which, for one reason or another, are not worth retaining in the flock. Of tiie older ewes, that is, of those who are over four- years old, some will be what is technically called « broken-mouthed « or « crones „, i. e., those that have lost one or more teeth ; others will have shown signs of losing their wool ; here, will be one that ■■■■■■■Mill K — 95 — had not sufficient milk to supply the wants of its last lamb, &c., &c. Of the younger ewes, there will be some whose form is not what it should be ; a weak neck in one, flat ribs in another, a weak loin in a third, &c., will cause them to be discarded. Then comes the selection of the young ewes to supply the place of the discarded in the following season ; and after all this work of selection is over and done with, we have to go to work in the most important of all, the choice of THE RAM. Says Prof. Wrightson,speaking of the father of the flock : ;< A good and improving flock of ewes, mated with rams likely to still further correct their weak points and produce ewe-lambs which will again add to the reputation of the flock, is of the greatest importance.)) n Rams must be bought with the strictest eye to personnal merit. Success does not depend upon price, but upon securing good sheep. Go to the sales of the best flocks, but back your own opinion . . A breeder will always find it expedient to be a buyer but he should always retain one or two of his own ram-lambs for service in his own flock, remember- ing, that it is not advisable to put them to ewes too near in consanguinity. » Did we mention that Jonas Webb once told us he never mated ram and ewe nearer than sixth-cousins. -96 - Notes : Mate strong ewes with rams of a more refined character, and the reverse. A light-coloured ram should be mated with dark ewes. If a preponderant fault of your ewes is want of width, or lean neck, or scanty legs, put them to a stout ram, with strong scrag and well-rounded ..legs of mutton. » Rape for a fortnight or three weeks before coup- ling will bring the ewes into humour for the ram. Prof Wrightson's plan is this : after the ewes have all been served, he puts one ram with the whole lot of them so that those ewes that .. return » may be served again. That the number of twins depends a great deal on management, is clear from the fact that some breeders invariably have a much heavier crop of lambs than others. Of course, as the rape treatment is the almost invariable practice of the great breeders of Essex, Cambridgeshire, &c., and was always resorted to by those leading flock- masters, the four brothers Webb, Sam. Jonas of Ickleton, John Clayden of Littlebury, and the like, it is clearly not a fantasy. Some farmers in this province have told me that they would rather have their ewes drop singles than twins Well, if they grudge a little extra food, and the trouble of keeping these ewes and their twins — 97 — apart from the ewes with singles, I have nothing to say about it ; but I should be glad to know how they treat a ewe that has lost her solitary lamb ? Milk her and make the milk into cheese, we sup. pose ! If a ewe is properly fed, she can nurse two lambs without drawing too much on her fund of life. We never saw many ewes in the districts round Joliette, or in those round St. Hyacinthe, but the small flocks in those parts always seemed to us to be kept for no definite purpose, but rather because it was the custom to keep sheep and the owners did, as their neighbours were in the habit of doing. It is full time, now that mutton is of such great value in our foreign market, the last report from London quoting « Shorthorns, 4s. 6d. per 8 lbs — Southdowns, 6s. » or, in our currency, and by the pound, i^y^ cents and 18 cents — that our people should look about them. DIPPING Our general practice here is for our ewes to lamb- down so late in the spring that there is not much danger of the foetus being injured in the operation ; for the early part cf September is about the best time for dipping ewes, and then the services of the ram has not, in nine cases out of ten, been put into requisition. In my time. Bigg's composition was the favorite sheep-dip, but the late lamented Sir -98- John Lawes brought out one quite as good towards the latter end of his useful life. Mr. Henr>' Gray, druggist, of St-L,awrence Main-Street, Montreal, has my notion of what a sheep-dip ought to be, and I can conscientiously recommend my readers to apply to him when in need of the materials. The best time fordipping, in my opinion, is just after harvest — say, the end of August — and the lambs, all of whom should be weaned by that date, should be dipped at the same time. Sheep are dipped for two reasons : first, to kill ticks ; secondly, to clean and promote the healthi- ness of the skin. It is, I hear, a common practice in England nowadays to dip sheep twice a year. In my time, once was considered sufficient, and as I never tried the second dipping I cannot speak of its effects from experience ; but the English flock- masters know ; they are not given to waste time or money, and if they do it, their example in this, as well as in other things, is a pretty safe one to follow. Notes or points. A sheep's head, here, is not worth much, except in large towns, where there are plenty of Scots, and people that, like ourselves, who have been a good deal in Scotland, have learnt to like a tup's « head » converted into soup with plenty of onions, celery, carrots, and pearl-barley. And yet that very member, if it is perfect, or even fairly Mil — 99 — good, will add many a dollar to the sellin' two days, or so. I submit a sketch of the newest kind of Hurdle ; it is usually made of iron, but I have used some of wood, which answered perfectly. It will be easily seen that a boy can move them backwards, or for- wards, without difficulty. If sheep are given to jumping, it would be a good plan -to leave one of the upright bars of each hurdle i8 inches higher than in the sketch ; if a wire is then run along the tops of the bars, loosely will do, the sheep may try to jump at first ; but, after a few attempts, the shock they receive on falling back from their spring will so astonish their weak nerves, that they wil — 113 — become disinclined to further adventures. It is in this way alone, that the Welsh Mountain sheep the wildest domestic animals in creation, can be kept within bounds. The fresh piece should a/ways be fjiven in the afternoon, say about 2 o'clock, when the sheep will have their bellies pretty full, and the evening dews have not begun to fall. One advantage that this hurdle, when used for ewes and lambs, has, is that while the ewes arc kept conhned to one place until the fold is advanced, the lambs can go forward into the, as yet, untou- ched vetches or rape. Of course, those who mean to push the lambs, will have a trough or two outside the fold, within which a few pints of pease, or mixed pease and oats, will be placed twice a day. Not only will the lambs be improved by this extra food, but the land will profit by the additional rich- ness of the manure dropped by sheep. In Kngland, many of the best farmers are giving up the use of artificial manure — always excepting superjjhospliate for the root crop — and devoting the money formerlv spent in its purchase to the acquisition of maixe, cake, or linseed, for their sheep and cattle. The land should be as carefully prepared for rape as for mangels, or swedes. A cross-ploughing, in 8 — 114 — the spring followed by the harrow, the roller and the eultivator, or grubber, if there is one handy, should leave Ihe land in a fine tilth by the nuddle or end of May. From 6 tt.s. to 8 U.s. of seed per acre can be either harrowed in, with light harrows or with a bush ; or, if the soil be a little cloddy I roller may be used; but so early ru the season a should prefer to leave a harrowed surface to a rol- ed surface, as being less likely to suffer cousoUd- ation and, consequently, hardening on the top, from heavy rains followed by a hot sun ; unless, as in the case of tares &c., where a scythe has to be subsequently used, and even then I would rather roll after the crop is up. Not many diseases trouble lambs, as long as they are on the lilk. Diarrhoea is sometimes brought on by a change from a poor pasture to a rich one but this generally yields to a dose of ^^^^^^ -' f^ Epsom salts, with a little gmger to soothe the boTels. Of the contrary complaint, const.paUon which until after they are weaned rarely affects l^mbs a slight aperitive will usually relieve them. 'c:e^u:tletLn, especially in bush farm^^^^^^ keep the hinder-parts quite free from faith, lest the fl should attack them. The best plan is to shear off the long wool that grows between the thighs ° d then to bathe the lambs in the preparation we Already spoke of. The head may be P-tected b,- a cap as in the following engraving, but if there is the least wound on the forehead, no cap should be — 115 — used, as the fly iiiicrht have dropped its eggs before- hand, and the maggots would then be hidden from the shepherd's eye, so that he would not he in a position to deal with them. (I) (2) — ii6 — The cap (I) is made of lamb-skin, and is tied on the head as shown in (2). Stewart advises that it should be smeared with a resinated carbolic acid salve, which should be renewed every week ; but very few shepherds would take so much extra trouble. . on It it acid but xtra CHAPTER VIII ON THE WKANING OF LAMBS T ainbs are usually weaned at the agt of from three to four months. Here, in the province of Quebec, they are generally left to wean themselves. In fact, the ewe often seen?, at the above period, to get tired of nursing, and repels the lamb when he seeks food « from nature's founts. » And it is not wonder- ful that she should weary of her work, when we see the terribly hard bunts her tender udder gets from the bossy frontal of her child. It would seem at first sight but a simple thing to wean a lamb. One would say : Oh ! take it away from the ewe, and the thing is done. True, but consider a little. Suppose, for instance the ewes and lambs are in a field, and you take the lambs away from their dams and put them into another field. What a jolly row there will be ! The lambs perfectly strange to their new home, wander about, baa-ing after their mothers and lose flesh in their ardent search after their dams and their accustomed playground. It will take them a few days to get accustomed to their new life. Now, look on this — ii8 — picture : take the ewes away from the lambs, after they have passed a few days in one and the same fiekl ; take the ewes away to another field, out of sijrht and out of hearinjr of the lambs, and it will not be long before the young ones will be seen contentedly feeding away in perfect tranquility. Those who have already weaned themselves, as we said just now, will be feeding, qr.ite sati^^ned with the grass, and at that sight the feelings of the others will be soothed, and they will soon follow the examples set them. If the lambing is early, the weaning .should be early too : otherwise, the ewes will not have time to get intv good condition before the season of coupling recurs. Only conceive that, even in our day in Scotland, the ewes were milked after the lambs vv-ere weaned, as I believe they still are in some part of France and in Piedmont ! and all for what ! for the gain in making a few poimds of cheese that some people appear to like ! However, in Britain this is no longer done. Though we object to the practice of milking ewes after weaning their lambs, we must watch over the ewes in regard to one thing. Every now and then, a quick-eyed shepherd will find that a ewe, whether from having lambed late, or for whatever cause, may have a flow of milk even after the weaning is over. In such a case, she must be dried off, exactly gs a cow is dried off before calving. Milk the ewQ — 119 — at intervals of 12 hours, then of 24 hours, tlien of 36 liours, and we need liardly say that, for a week or ten days, the less succulent her food is the better. It is by neglecting these cases, in cows as well as in ewes, that so many of them lose one or more teats. After an interval of separation of from len days to a fortni.<,dit, the lambs and ewes can be restored to companionship ; all filial instinct or maternal feeling will have utterly vanished. Notes. Why should so many black sheep be kept in the French part of the province? Is it to save the trouble of dyeing the wool of the flock ? Curiously enough, a very large proportion of the early lambs sent to Montreal are black. On the 27th of February I saw two \ery line, though not large, fat lambs hanging up in Messrs Browns' shop St. Catherine street. They were ripe-fat, the kidneys well covered, and the briskets full of meat, but they handled soft, and a few pints of pease, with a fortnight or so longer feeding, would have made them much better meat. The following is the system of feeding the flock of one of the leading breeders of Hampshire-Downs in England : Before lambing, the ewes have turnips and sain- foin hay ; aft<"r lambing, they have a mixture of one ^.IWrSiSVVWT -! I — 1 20 part hay to six parts wheat-straw chaffed, with a bushel of pulped roots- swedes or mangels— to six- teen bushels of the chaff ; to this is added half a pound of malt culms, and the same of pease-meal, to each ewe, the whole being thoroughly mLxed and allowed to ferment for thirty-six hours. Ewes nurs- ing fvins have a pound of cotton-cake in addition to the above. Mall culms are the dried rootlets of the malt. Some times called coombs. Mixed foods are clearly the best for all kinds of stock. Professor Wrightson, in a letter I saw some years ago, recommends the following as being composed of farinaceous and albuminoid consti- tuents in fair proportion : ADVANTAGE OF MIXING FOODS " We certainly recommend a mixture of concent- rated foods. Linseed cake alone is too heating, anu if the sheep are to be kept in health it ought to be mixed with a proportion of foods poorer in albu- minoids. If this precaution is neglected we shall run a chance of sore teats and sore mouths. In the above remarks we were chiefly aiming at arriving at the limits of cost. We now suggest that a mix- ture should be made on the most economical and scientific grounds possible. The mixture should be readilv constructed, and be free from complication. It should be composed of farinaceous and albumi- noid conslituents in fair proportions. We suggest the-.foUowing : — .,fi!^^l^amA — 121 — First mixture for ewes or tegs : — I bushel of linseed cake . . . ^ ,. 1 '' cotton cake.... [' ^" V'"' i^''^' 2 '' maize (crushed) j "'■''^''• Second mixture for ewes : — 1 bushel of bran ^ I " linseed cake. . . [ i to i J< ft>. per I " barley f head. I " maize J Third mixture for lambs : — I bushel of white peas ^ ^ . , I " lin.seed cake ... Q«^"tity P- ^'^^'^ I " malt culms ....\ ^" ^'^r^ ''''^^' I " crushed barley. J ^*^^*- Fourth mixture for dry sheep : — i bushel of wheat ^ I " barlev j i to i ! < tt.. per I " oats ( head. I " linseed cake ... J " It is pity, sainfoin is not more cultivated here. I grew some, on Mr. Dawes' farm at Lachine, some ten or twelve years ago ; it did very well, but, unfortunately, the land was wanted the second year for some other purpose, and the sainfoin was ploughed up before it had an opportunity of show- ing what it could do at its best. I say, it is a pity it is not grown here, for there is nothing equal to It as a pasture for weaning lambs. It grows well on all calcareous soils, and lasts for several seasons '-'-L^'-^aSBI" — 122 — Nvitliont renewal. I have never seen lambs scour when on sainfoin, thou-h I have often seen that nialadv affects them when on red-clover, and these latter patients were completely cured when removed to a sainfoin-lea. As I mentioned sainfoin jnst now, I might as we^l say a few words on its cultivation, etc. The seed is generally sown in the capsule, if milled seed is sown, 40 ft.s. to the acre will be sufficient. We see, upon looking back into one of our journals that the sainfoin we grew at Lachine was fit to cut 17 days before red-clover. For hay, it should be cut just as the blossoms are beginning to expand, and as it is a very early crop, it would be well, to increase the first year's yield, to sow with it aboHt 5 lbs. of vellow trefoil, medicago lupulina. Both of these plants become sticky if left too long before mowing. During tlie first year,sainfoin rarely makes a great show but improves vastly in the second, and in the third will astonish the grower. If milled seed is used, it can be sown with the same implement that is used to sow clover-seed. Sainfoin has been the salvation of many a farmer on the poor, thin, chalky lands of the south of Eng- land. There are two sorts, the common and the giant ; the latter is the one usually sown on heavy '^oils, as although it does not hold out as many years — 123 — as the common sort, its yield in hay and feed is ninch threaten The treatment of the crop is generally as follows : 3 and sometimes 3 ^i bushels are sown to the acre with a o^rain ci ■! and harrowed in, takino^ care to cover the seed w.ll — in fa::, in Kent, we always used to put it re with, a ^rain drill at 7 inches apart — the next summer, it should be mown for hay before the blossom is more than half expanded. The aftermath is g-ood for all sorts of stock, and the best place in the world for weaningr lambs, as they never scour on it. We have known it stand for 12 years, but it is generally, in the usual course of cropping, ploughed up for wheat in the 7th year, completing the rotation, and avoiding the too frequent repetition of the red- clover: thus — turnips, barley, clover, wheat, which is the ordinary shift, would become turnips, barley, sainfoin, down for 5 years, wheat — a most refreshing course for the land if it will bear sainfoin. I have an indistinct recollection of Jonas Webb telling me that he had succeeded with the giant sainfoin on a clay-farm some way off from the Babrahani establishment. The seed must be new, or failure is certain. We fear however, that any attempt to grow it where 7f/ii/e clover fails to take would be hopeless — no plant will grow without plant-food, and we fear that the gentleman who asks a question as to the probable success of .sainfoin on his n terre sablonneuse tres mediocre", which is most likeK utterly limeless, will not find any plant to answer — 124 — his requirements. The sheep's foot would work wonders, and until that is tried we see no hope for the « very moderate sandy soils. » SHOW-SHEEP As to the best method of gettin^j up a lot of sheep for show, there is the choice between house and open-air feeding. Sheep are not so happy under cover as in the open air, and we have heard the opinion expressed again and again that an open-air life is the best even for show-sheep. Any judge can at once tell a shed-fed sheep by from his w^ool. Plenty of room is also a point, and many prizes have been won by sheep which have been allowed to run forward in front of their fellows and pick the primest clover, rape, and cabbage. Upon the artifi- cial foods it is not necessary to dilate, except in so far as to say that sheep of this description should be allowed a plentiful supply of the l)est tliat money can purchase. A constant variety in natural foods, and a liberal quantity of the best linseed cake and old beans fairly indicate the food ; but who can describe the many minor points as to early and late feeding, frequency of meals, and methods of tempt- ing the unwilling appetite, and coaxing the animals to grow ? These belong to the art of shepherding, and are of vital consequence. A master might as well try to take prizes without sheep as without a — 125 — shepherd, and it \Vnuld not be possible to commit all the store of kntjwledge possessed by a compet- ent shepherd to paper. Neither possible nor yet desirable ; and if it could be done, the written directions would not ensure the same success in other hands. First-rate shepherds are not so uncommon as they are difficult to find, because they are not given to changing their situations often, A pleasant feature of sheep-farming is that mutual regard of master and shepherd, both men appreciat- ing each other's value. Training is carried on with some little afltectation of secrecy, and much under- toned and almost whispered consultation. The attention is constant and the daily care extraor- dinary. The trimming of show sheep is a matter of import- ance. There are those who object to trinnning, but it is impossible to i " sheep in the natural unkempt and rough s . It is really cruel to ask a breeder to exhibit his sheep in a great show, before ladies and gentlemen, without dressing them. What would a horse-breeder say to a regulation insisting that his hunter or his thoroughbred should appear ungroomed and rough, with long tail and uncombed mane ? A sheep-breeder has similar feelings, and similar failings. Besides, the public like to see animals well turned out of hand, and even the pigs appear wdth their hair curled and oiled, and their skins blooming as if they had been immersed in a bath composed of toilet vinegar. Trimming may -f . 126 be overdone, or unfairly done, but to the legitimate use of the art there can be no objection. The meth- ods vary with every breed. The Leicester appears, like the parson, all shaven and shorn. The Lincoln is smeared ove'" with some mysterious unguent, which makes the hands feel very disagreable if they are allowed to touch the fleece. The Cots wold comes out gurly in coat, white, and redolent of soap-and-water. The Southdown appears as like a plum as a sheep can possibly be made, and bears evidence of the shears over his entire carcase. A very smug gentleman indeed is the Southdown when in his warpaint. Trimming is carried to the greatest perfection in the Down races. * * * Some curious mistakes found in a « Practical treatise on Agriculture » : « Sheep-dung injures the quality of barley, causing it to yield less starch. » What would our English farmers, on the chalk-hills of the Eastern and South- eastern countries say to this ? Almost all the best barley used for malting in the large malt-houses of Saffron-Walden, Ware, &c., for the use of the o-icrantic breweries of London, Burton-on-Trent, and elsewhere, is grown on the chalk, after turnips fed off by sheep, who pass day and night in folds there ; and the writer continues : « Sheep-dung is suitable to all soils except calcareous ones ! m — 127 — The Sussex breeders keep large flocks of ewes, sell all their wether lambs and hill-mouth ewes to the upland graziers of Kent, Surrey, (S:c., who fatten them ; they send their ewe-tegs out to keep on the grass-lands at so much a score for the winter, which fully accounts for the small size of the Sussex-downs, as they return half-starved. Our old friend, Rigden w^ho kept 300 breeding ewes, never fattened a single sheep, except the superb dozen or so of 20 month's old wethers he used to send to the Smithfield Club show at Christmas, carrying off many a prize. The old English weaned their lambs on August 1 2th, hence called Lammas-day; but if your ewes have lambed, as they ought to do, by th'": middle of April, they might be separated from their young by the middle of July, and got into good condition with rape by the ist of September, when, if the ram is introduced to them, they would lamb at the end of January or the beginning of P'ebruary. What pulled down the price of early lamb this last spring (1892) was the scores of Uican little cats, weighing some 4 il»s. the quarter, that were sent up to Montreal in March. Every little Hcag-magi) butcher had one hanging up in what he is pleased to call his market^ and a wretched sight it was. A lamb should weigh, if properly done by, from 32 to 40 lbs. of carcase at 12 or 13 weeks old, and should not be slaughtered before that age ; then, if he and his dam have been well fed, pease not having been omitted in the lamb's ration, and the ewe having — 128 — Had a fa,, allowance of caUe a-^ -- *e 1-b ^^^^^^ „e a credit to Ins feec^ ^^^ rd^sL Mm, and who kills h-'Vlirthree weeks from the time the ewe, in a fortnight or f'^" ^^^'; f„n„,v ;„ the lamb goes to market, w.U be reads its footsteps. .heep distnctsof "•- S°"* o^ .tw-o-tooth, fonr- called, by the """*'f , °' '^' , V,„ . . „,,gran.ma- tooth, six.tooth, and {""">°" .f '^ ^^^^a lamb, tical, but ->fficientl, deserrptue. A w ^_^ ^^^ ^^^^^ with us, becomes a teg, and a ewe of her teeth from a-e is a cronr. CHAPTER VIII. TRKATMENT OF I.AMBS AFTKR WEANING. We left our lambs taking entire care of themselves for the first time in their short lives. There will, of course, be a trifle of fuss and bother for a few davs, but they will soon get accustomed to their deserted condition, feed away merrily, play about with each other in bands of three or four, and pass the noon- tide hours in shady spots in refreshing slumber. By the time the July heats have invaded the country, and the grass begin to show signs of failing to supply sufficient food for the increasing needs of the growing lambs, the earliest sown of the rape will be ready to receive them ; so we will now consider hew we shall make the best arrangement for consuming the rape in the most economical way, not forgetting that we have two things to attend to : first, the proper feeding and care of the lambs ; and, secondly that the land shall get its share of the manure from the lambs equally distributed over the surface and, as soon as possible, be covered in by the plough. In order that this system may be thoroughly car- ried out, it is necessary that the flock should be 9 1 . fhc^ breeders. never ^«" \"7„\; ^'^endosure made by hurdles or t«rn,ps. A »'d '^^"^"j^ transported from place (see cut), «h.ch ^-^^^l^ continuously in rows r^-::V;oSr«d, to sheep. -3>-'^--^rto"ratr6intsrpt:: alternated from srde « ^^e- J' „„gh stuff t,„„gh -^Vsiri ect "ches'long, exactly in the form of stakes, 4 fee ^^^^^ ^^j„„, when as in the engraving. A=, 1 m ^^ speaking, of another 'o- f ^o^ljbe run through - given to lumpmg » -- '^^^^ ^ ..eep tries to the tops of the Stokes s ^ ^ ^^^^^^^ by „et out of the fold, he wui n ^j. * . J <,(f»r heiue thrown mck "y '■• — 131 — ity. A lad of 15 years can easily roll over these hurdles, and set them in rows, so the work is not c stly. Some arrangement, to prevent small, hack- ward lambs from creeping out through the spaces- trifling enough — where one hurdle meets another, will have to be made : we used, when at vSorel, lo drive short stakes into the ground, but a better plan would be to make, or have made, a dozen or so of iron tripods, as in frosty weather the stakes cannot be driven into the ground. The number of these hurdles required on a farm will depend entirely on the number of sheep kept. As to the form in which the fold should be pitched, that again depends upon the shape and width of the field. At all events we must remember that the fold must not be too wide, because it is a maxim in folding that when one length of the field has been gone over by the flock, it should not be wider than a plough can turn over in a day's work. But in the case we are considering, we must have two folds, and for this reason ; we have two sets of lambs as we said above. The wether-lambs will naturally be given the freshest and best feed, that is, the first piece of rape or turnips enclosed by the fold, in which there will probably be a trough or two, with rations of chaff, or pease, or grain, and, towards the winter, all three ; and when the>- have taken off the first bloom of the rape or turnips in the fold, another of the same size will be added at — 132 — ,,in be introduced, and «h- 'U.s 's o p^^^^^^ .^ :;-^Si'o::rrtrd;r:..us.^^^^^^^^^^^ called <• clean-iip." VVUentUewe.he.la.bs.aveBnishe^^^^^^^^ f„,d of rape, etc., a ";«^*°'f^ »„" ^^C-Umbs into which they w.U ^^ '»"^'"' " ,„, fi„t fold- . M again take the.r place. Next, U ^ hurdle's, being no« -'^^^j f, ^'w occupied er:eth:"rbs,t:tolh^^^ is completed. THE FOLDS. ,,e allowed to begtn npon the. ne .^ ^^^ empty belly, or when the ra^ ^^^^^ ^,^ ^^„ ,,Hh rain or dew o *e'' g^^ ,^,,,„ri,,3,„ ;r:;i:rl"te:o»oneonhoseo,d,nowworn. — 133 — out, superstitions, so many of wliicli remain perti- naciously clinging to the less educated of our coun- trymen. The best way to ensure immunity from this danger, is to feed the lambs up wellall the morning and so late as 3 P. M., and then to let them into their first fold for a couple of hours. The first thing, upon entering the fold, the lambs will do is to hunt about all over the place, treading down the rape, ike, and there is no chance of their beginning to feed until they have investigated every corner of the fold. Pursue the above plan for a couple of days, and after that they can be trusted to look after their own safety as far as gormandising goes. Rape is but a watery food after all, though we have long been convinced by constant watching that the chemist's idea of the water in roots, and all green-crops is by no mean the idea of the practical feeds nt as rape is full of liquid, in some form or other, it is clear that the young sheep must have some kind of dry food to aid its digestion in the assimilation of the moister food ; the question we have now to solve is : what dry food is most suitable to the delicate appetite of the, as yet, unaccustomed lambs ? Chaff, whether of straw or hay, is an excellent food — if one could only get the lambs to take it ; the pity is, that until really cold weather comes on, the little wretches persist in neglecting it. Clover- i — 134— l,u- chaff slan.ls a letter chance of hcinj! caU-n, but „ at is not .0 he depended niK.n. Of the R^ns ,.e prefer oats, and of pulse in the »'-"«"'-; „,<, friend, the horse-bean, «e u.ust '^-n to p se and wl,cre can we fn.d any superior .n tins hne o the Canadian white-pea. It u.ay not be Reuerally UUO.U, but when a sample "' ■'"■ '"l Laue'th En.dish Rrowth is oflered for sale at Mark-Laue, tl>e 'reat Kntlish market for grain, pulse, etc nocoru- ?ac.orwiU offer a price for the ''ulU «nt.. a q- or so of it has been sent to one of the munerou taverns in the neighbourhood of 'he -"-ket and boiled as an experiment on Us quaht> , whr e a Lnple of Canadian pease is bought at once a^ there were no doubt about their ' melting ui the p^t : Oiougl. we find here, that bnt too often they are refractory. in mv own practice, I always gave the dry food to ^he lambs i.i the afternoon, because, somehow o^ other, in this country, sheep do not --" ° ^"^ ^ heartilv on rape and early turnips as e doj^a Britain ; so an early feed or grain, etc ^"f^^^^ away their appetite for the green-meat. I do not link it nece^arv to crush the grain or pulse, b cans it is verv'rare .0 find any undigested grain in the dun" of sheep, in fact they are capital chew-- ers .^ fo'r the quantity of grain required foreach amb, I always found about a pint of P-- -^ ^'^ mixed, with a double-handful of chaff sufficient iTtowards the end of the season, as the mornings — U5 — jjet colder and the lambs, or te^^s as they would be called at home, are approach in ..,?, an „ co i would not answer the ,.-..!>ose .r. -;"^^ required, and, if kept, v cu.d .c .<•■ ■ bi> ill value. The other agent wr.es : We could not buy any J::i::;.oo^unlessweconld^et.fors..^^^^^^^ bTarrape-a:ll'loW^^^ •/;;; be a gre^t loss to .rowers who do not wash. A large wool-merchant writes to an inquirer : I , ,"^,, that the difference between washed and beg to say tnai i ^,v ,nx^%. For instance : ,.„™ashed wool is from 25^ to 35/6- r t-^Xool at, say from 6d 8d., xc, r. a p^nnd, would be for unwashed, 4 'A^; 6d., 7d-, A P Mr. Turner, another man well kno- as an ex^tt i„ wool, and who in conse<,u-ee ofn -putat^o^^ ,, such -*°-rk'stepSoe^ England), Tor,iotinTav:LT::>s^^^^^ Td gate "1:; following reasons for his op.nron : -;;rB... do,„.e. woo, wa..Hen .oH. r„„ ,^. « .3^- ^ P0»-^ in p:ngland. — 149 — ti Mr. Turner said he had taken great pains to go into this important question, and he had been asked over a hundred times by letter what was his opini n on the subject. He had no hesitation in saying that he was very strongly of opinion that Knglish wool ought to be washed on the sheep's back. ( )l)iection, of course, was taken to this in many cases, but if they knew as much as he about the source from which these objections came they would not think much about them. In 1887, 23,000,000 H»s weight — about one-sixth of the whole produce — was exported from England, and if the wool was not waslK-d this export trade would be ruined. For instance ; there was an import dut>- on wool to the United-States of 5d. a pound ; whether the wool was washed or not the duty was the same. It was quite clear that under the circumstances the Americans would buy washed wool which would only shrink 20 per cent., when they certainly would not buy unwashed wool which would shrink 40 per cent. The Hradford Chamber of Agriculture had made an inquiry into the subject, and he believes their decision would be against the non-washing of sheep. » If dirty unwashed wool is offered for sale, inmie- diately the buyer begins to find fault, and to make out that there never was such a filthy lot bro'ught to his factory ; whereas, when a nice well-washed fleece is shown, the bright, clear look of tlie wool fascinates the eye of the manufacturer, and he jumps at the lot in a moment. — 15° — No ! I do not think we will give up washing our sheep yet. The Bradford Chamber of Commerce, the largest company of wool-buyers in the world, have record- ed their opinion on the very point at issue. •< What is wanted i. they said," is more care and attention to this « part of his business on the part of the British agri- « culturist ; and as the out spoken opinion of this .( Chamber may be of service, the committee appoint- « ed to report on the subject venture to say that in ••this matter an amount of culpable slovenliness « prevails on the part of the farmer which in any « other branch of our national industry would not « be tolerated.* If the Bradford chamber of Com- merce have seen reason to alter their opinion since they reported to Earl Cathcart in the above terms, some few years ago, I shall be glad to have inti- mation of ii.. SKEEP SHEARING It may be taken as an axiom in economics, that the more completely finished for the use of the consumer any article is, when it leaves the manu- facturer, the higher proportionate price will it fetch. For instance ; cotton yarn is much dearer in pro- portion than the rough cotton as the bale leaves the press in its native coimtry ; and it is clear, from this consideration, that the labour expended on the cleansing, teasing, and other manipulations it under- — 151 — goes, with a proper addition to the price of the article, goes on accumulating, until at last the pur- chaser of a printed calico dress pays for the whole. Thus, we have often wondered why the farmers of this province are so fond of shearing their sheep in the unwashed state. To begin with, it will be said that the wool is washed afterwards : true enough, but shearing a sheep with a dirty skin makes rough work, and moreover, wool washed off the sheep's back is deprived of its yolk^ when dry feels harsh, and is in an unfit state for certain processes of manufacture. In the year 1862 we superintended the washing of 60 sheep for the late y.. Amable Demers, of Chambly. The affair was very simply managed : the sheep were penned in a temporary fold, by the side of the < petite riviere de Chambly ; » a large tub was kept full of water, into which each sheep was plunged and thoroughly washed, the dissolved yolk acting as a soap ; and after ten days, passed in a clean pasture, the sheep were shorn, so much to the satisfaction of the proprietor and the manufact- urer (Mr. Thomas Willett), that the former pre- sented me with a two year old fat wether in acknowl- edgement of my assistance. I say, that the sheep were kept in a clean pasture, because it is well that there should be no roads or earth-banks for them to soil themselves against. The practice of tub-vvash- ing, as distinguished from pool-washing, has long — 152 — been in use in Yorkshire, England, and was the invention of Raspail, a French chemist, who observ- ed that « when the wool is washed, this soap (yolk) is dissolved, and takes the salts with it. Hence it follows, that the water that has been used in this process becomes, at each repetition, better adapted for the purpose, m Stephens, in his « Book of the Farm, » objects to the practice, but he seems never to have tried it, and as a set off to his opposition, I think the fact that, in England, tub-washed wool always brings frofti a half-penny to a penny a poi.ud more than pool-washed wool will be sufficient. At least it used to when I knew the trade. Sheep should not be washed until the water has attained a temperature from 56'* F. to 60^ F. After washing, they should wait ten days or so, before shearing, as the wool must not only be thoroughly dry, but the yolk, the natural oil of the wool, must return into it again, and the new wool should have risen from the skin, before the old is taken off. Dis- regard to this particular renders shearing difficult, and certainly injures the appearance of the fleece. Generally speaking, one may wash the first week in June and shear in the second : if the water of small streams be used, it will be found warm enough by that time. « The \olk being a true soap, soluble in water », says Luccock, " it is easy to account for the compar- ative ease with which the sheep that have the - 153 — natural proportion of it are washed in a running^ stream. .. The composition of yolk was found to be in the rough : soap of potash, carbonate of potasli,' acetate of potash, muriate of potash, lime, and an animal fatty matter which imparts to wool its peculiar odour. The medium quantity of volk in short-woolled sheep, according to Youatt, is about y2 he fleece. More yolk is found on the breast and neck of the sheep than on any other part of the bodx- and It IS there that the finest and softest wool grows.' Softness of the pile is, therefore, evidently connected with the presence and quality of yolk. There is no doubt that this substance is designed to nourish the wool and to ^xv^ it richness and pliability. In what way IS the growth of the wool promoted ? By paying more attention than our farmers are accus- tomed to give to the quantity and quality of this substance possessed by the animals which they select for breeding purposes. The quantity and quality of the yolk, on which farmers seldom bestow a thought aHd the nature of which they neither understand nor care about, will, at some future period, be regarded as the very essential and cardinal points of the sheep-considered as a wool-bearing animal I must add to Mr. Youatt's expression of opinion : for wool IS so low in price and mutton so dear, that the question now-a-days is : which sheep will produce the greatest weight and finest quality of meat ? Shearing.-^ smooth barn-floor is the best place for this operation. Our flocks are so small that no — 154 — extensive preparation is needed. The best shears have additional springs between the handles to separate the blades more forcibly, but they hurt the hand, and are not worth the trouble. The great thing in shearing is to keep the points clear of the skin by gently pressing the blades upon the skin- bo keep the hand low, and rest the broad part of the blades upon the skin— you will not cut your sheep much if this is attended to. With scissors, such as we have seen used in the French country, but ragged work cau be made. ing; — 155 — Our engravings illustrate the three stages of sliear- First, after setting the sheep on its rump, and on the supposition that the clipper is a right-handed man, he rests on his right knee, and leans the back of the sheep against his left leg a, bent. Taking the shears in his right hand, and holding up the sheep's mouth with his left, he first clips the short wool on the front of the neck, and then passes down the throat and breast between the fore-legs to ihe belly. Then, placing the fore-legs b under his left arm c^ he shears the belly across from side to side - I5«> - ■ In Dassing down the belly and down to the groins .1° P^^ f^„ ,oose, while the g„in, where the skm i^naX«« V^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^„, shears rf are at work, *=/^„t„„/is then bar^. pulls the skin ttght The sc ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^, ?Hen the inside of '^;* t: ^i^W parts that are sides of the tail *• These Fig. i For the clipping of these reached in this position. ^^j ,^,„, is parts small shears ^»»« '""",,, uis best clipped Lrt, and of ^ ^-^t^ -e'ully held close, \yy the points oi \.\\e stiea , ... J ,, .He second stage of clipping- Its ^''^- ' r'\rshee?i"g--'^ by first relieving it» position for tlie stieep 1 b — 157 — fore-legs b from their position in fig. i, and, j^ently turning the sheep upon its far side, while the shearer, resting on both knees, supports its far shoulder upon his lap. You may always rely upon this fact— the more a sheep feels at ease, the more readily it will lie quiet to be clipped. Supporting its head with his left hand, the clipper first removes the wool from behind the head, then around the entire back of the neck to the shoulder-top. He then slips its head and neck a under his left arm g, and thus having the left hand at liberty, he keeps the skin tight with it, while he clips the wool with the right, from where the clipping in the first position, fig. I, was left off to the backbone, all the way down the near side. In the figure, the fleece appears to be removed about half way down the carcass ; the left hand b lying flat, keeping the skin tight ; while the right hand e holds the shears at the right part, and in the proper position. The clipper thus proceeds to the thigh and the rump and the tail d, which he entirely bares at this time. is Clearing the sheet of the loose parts of the fleece, the clipper, holding by the head, lays over the sheep on its clipped or near side, while still continuing on his knees ; and he then rests his right knee, fig. 3, over its neck on the ground, and his right foot b on its toes, the ankle keeping the sheep's head down to the ground. This is the third position in clip- ping. The wool having been bared to the shoulder I - 158 - in the second position, the clipper has now nothing to do but to commence where it was then left off, and to clear the fleece from the far side from the back-bone, where it was left off in fig. 2, in the second position, towards the belly, where the clip- ping was left off in the first position, fig. i.— the left hand e being still at liberty to keep the skin tight, while the right hand/ uses the shears across the whole side to th^ tail. The fleece^ is now quite freed from the sheep. In assisting the sheep to rise, care must be taken that its feet are free from entanglement with the fleece, otherwise, in its eagerness to escape from the unusual treatment it has just received, it will tear the fleece to pieces. * On comparing the attitudes of the clipper and of the sheep in the different stages of clipping just described, with those of a mode very common in the country, it is necessary to look again atthe/r5^ stage of the process, fig. i, the common practice of conducting which is to place the sheep upright on its tail, and the clipper to stand on his feet, sup- porting its back against his legs— wliich is both an insecure and painful position for the sheep, and an irksome one for the man, who has to bow much down to clip the lower part of the animal. *Thrartist has erroneously represented the sheep lying on its/ar side, and the clipping to proceed from the belly to the backbone, which is the proper posture for the second position, as also the keep- ingtheheadofthe.heep down with the left leg a, whereas the sheep should have lain upon its near side, the wool been shorn from the back-bone to the belly, and the head d kept down with the right leg, as described above. 159 — In the second stage, fig. 2, the man still remains on his feet, and the sheep upon its rump, while he- secures its head between his legs, in order to tighten the skin of the near side, which is bent outward by his knees. The skin is certainly tightened, but at the expense of the personal ease of the animal ; for the hand can tighten the skin as well, as shown in all the figures, at B and E ; whilst the bowing down so low, and so long, until he clips the entire side, can not fail to pain the back of the clipptr. The third position is nearly the same in both plans, with the difference in the common one, which keeps the left leg bent, resting on its foot — a much more irksome position than kneeling on both knees. t CHAPTER IX I THE AGE OF SHEEP As we said b^ore, the age of a sheep up its fourth year, can be accurately told by inspecting its teeth. The following cuts and description we borrow from the book of the celebrated French Veterinar>' M. Samson. A TWO-TOOTH SKEEP, 12 TO 1 5 MONTHS When a month old, the lamb has 8 temporary teeth and three molars on each side of the jaw. At three months, a permanent molar is added to the three. At nine months, the second permanent molar makes its appearance. — i6i — At fourteen months, two permanent incisors appear. At eighteen months, a third permanent moiar shows itself. A FOUR-TOOTH, 20 TO 24 MONTHS At twenty^ne months, there will be seen four permanent incisors. A SIX TCTH, 30 TO 30 MONTHS At thirty months, there will be nent incisors. seen six perma- II — l62 — And when the sheep reaches the age of from forty to forty-five months, he will show his full-mouth, that is eight permanent incisors. I A FUIvL-MOUTH, 40 TO 45 MONTHS We must observe however, that many variations in the dentition of sheep occur, owing to the food or to some other cause ; but as a general rule, we „,ay depend upon a sheep with two i^rmanent inci- Tori beLg one year old ; if he has four he . two years old ; if six, three years old ; if eight, he is a full-mouthed sheep, i. e., four years old. iVr^/..-Cutting.up a sheep. Before being slaugh- tered, a sheep should be fasted for at least 24 hours k sh;ep is supposed to lose about 13 per cent oH weight during the above named time. Simple Tn^ugh, the operation of slaughtering : the anima •sTafd on its side on a bench or stool ; its egs, all but the hind leg that is uppermost as it lies, are aed ogether ; and its life is taken by a thrust o a aigh' knife through the neck, severing the carotid Irtery and the jugular vein of both sides ; the blood — i63 — flowing freely out, the sheep soon dies. Many butch- crs, for what reason I know not, twist the poor thing's neck round, and break it against their knee. As soon as the sheep is dead, a small hole is cut through the skin into the flesh just where the leg begins to thicken ; the butcher, applying his mouth to the hole, fills the carcase with wind on that side, and does the same on the otlier side, all the time thumping the carcase with his iisi to promolf- the equal circulation of the wind. 'i})is I. said to obviate all risks of bruises. Henry Stephens, in his great work, « The Farm «, says that « sheep require no fastenings with cords » wherein, in our opinion, he his wrong. About 80 years ago, our farm-steward— ^a?//^ we call that oflicer in Kent-was killing a sheep ; the animal was not tied ; the man, wanting to change the sheep's position, put the knife between his legs ; the sheep in Its struggles kicked the knife, it struck into the man's thigh, cut the femoral artery, and in less than ten minutes the man had bled to death. Since that time, no one in that part of the world has ever killed a sheep without tying its legs. One leg, the upper one as it lies, is left loose in order that the animal by his kicking with it, may hasten the expulsion of the blood. The entrails are then removed by an incision along the belly, after the carcase has been hung up by a bar placed through the tendons of the leo^or — i64 — hocks. The parts inside the brisket «"J "«k are now carefully washed out with a cloth d.pp«3 >" water, the caul separated from the paunch and the job is complete ; though I forgot to say that the belly is distended with a large skewer or stretcher. The carcase should hang for 24 hours in a clean, cool, dry room before it is cut up. If the room ,s not cool, meat will never become firm ; if .t is not drv, the carcase will remain clammy to the touch. I,? England, our sheep used to be divided down the back with a chopper ^ here, we believe, ,t .s done with a saw. Now, how shall we cut up the sV^-p into joints ? That depends upon whether the .Ueep is a small Welsh sheep or a fair sized Down or Le'«ster. In the former case, the Scotch plan of makmg what, after the French system of butchermg, is called a fi got. (cf. gigot), i. e., cutting part o the lo.n rn witl. the leg. On the English plan, the leg is cut off short and the loin is taken clean away from the „pck The shoulder is removed entire and either roasted-neverboiled-or dressed with a fine savory sauce, after being egg-and bread-crumbed and care- pUly broiled ou a rather slow fire, or in a Dutch-oven before the fire. The best joint in a sheep's carcase is the saddle. It consists of the two loins undivided. If yon are fortnnate enongh to have the means of roasting meat mdMMT -i65- by an open fire, do not allow the spit to be thrust through any joint, but get what is called a « cradle- Spit », in which the meat lies like a patient baby in its real cradle. You probably like mutton-chops ; try one cut from the upper end of the saddle right across the back. This, commonly called a - double- chop », though it is by no means common, is as much better than a chop from the loin as a saddle is better than the loin itself ; probably, from the gravy being kept in, instead of oozing-out during the progress of the broiling. Chops should be cut about i y, inch thick, and broiled quickly on a sharp, brisk fire. Seven minutes should cook a chop of the above thickness. The shoulder, plainly roasted, is eaten with onion- sauce. The neck has two parts, the « best-end », which can be either roasted or boiled ; if the latter, caper-sauce should accompany- it ; the « scrag » makes good mutton-broth. The breast, or brisket, is gener- ally too fat. but is not bad when dressed something in the same way as I have described for dressing the shoulder. Not many days ago, my butcher, who is good enough to think I know something about mutton, sent us the rib of Cotswold sheep. It was prepost- erously fat, but the tenderness and rich flavour of the lean was something to dream of. mjmmm liisakiiWk&amm . CHAPTER X THE DISEASES OF SHEEP TTaving cursorily gone over the general points of interest in the treatment of the flock, I now turn, in the last place, to the diseases that afflict it ; and, 'first, I will offer a few words on that trouble- some complaint This is a complaint with which we have not much acquaintance in this country ; still, it may be as well to learn something about it. It is gen- erally prevalent in wet seasons, and sometimes affects hares and rabbits as well as sheep. In 1838, when I was staying at Wenvoe Castle, Glamorg- anshire, it was fearfully destructive to these ; I remember well picking up five or six hares, in one short stroll through the meadows, all of them carried off by rot. Not many years ago, the writer's brother, of Hill-Court, Gloucestershire, wrote to me, saying that, on his property, there had been neither hare, rabbit, not sheep spared for nearly four years! The losses of sheep in England amounted, during the period, to millions, and no remedy has ever been found for the disease. Mr. Bakewell, the Leicester man, used to utilise this complaint in a curious way. — 167 — Having observed that some meadows enjoyed (?) the curious property of always rotting the sheep that were pastured therein, he made a point, whenever he wished to fatten off a lot quickly, of sending them to feed there ; would any non-observant man have ever discovered that rotten sheep fatted more rapidly than sheep free from the disease ? Of course these were not breeding sheep, but sheep intended for immediate slaughter. THE ROT I am not veterinary surgeon, so I do not pretend to write an original treatise on this trouble. The disease is caused by the incursion into the liver of what is usually known as the ^omtder or yiui-e^ the history of whose life is rather peculiar. It starts as a parasite of a fresh-water snail, whose shell is from one-fourth to one-half of an inch long ; a well- known veterinary surgeon tells us that this snail suffers as much from the invasion of the fluke as the sheep does, and often dies from its attacks. « A severe winter kills off « rotten snails, » but a mild winter may simply render them torpid, and thus unusually early cases of rot in sheep frequently occur. In the tissues of this snail it develops into a kind of sac, in which develop numerous larva; with tails. These escape through a special vent in the sac, and for the time lead a free and independ- ent life in water. They then come to rest, cast their tails, aud develop an enveloping cyst (bladder) of a — iC8 — hf 1 snow-white colour which adheres to the leaves or stalks of grasses or water-plants. These may remain a few weeks, but if they undergo no further change of condition, the embryo within perishes. In this form, on grass or in water, they pass into the alimentary canal of the host or ultimate bearer (the sheep or horse), the pupa-cyst (the envelope) is digested by the action of the gastric juice, and, from the stomach of the host, through the duodenum and the bile-duel, the fluke gradually winds its way up to the liver, n It is hardly worth while to enter into a discussion on the different opinions of learned men as to the way in which the fluke is disseminated. Suffice it to say, that as one sheep may contain a thousand flukes, and each fluke forty thousand eggs, it is clear that one sheep may contaminate a large pasture. When the eggs that the fluke has laid are ex- pelled from the sheep, the rain washes them into drains, ponds, &c., the eggs develop into ciliated (hairy) embryos that swim about freely in the water, and after a few days of free, active existence, the young creature, losing its cilia becomes a creeping larva, and finds its way into the mollusc (snail, here), its first host as the sheep is its last. Four stages of " rot » are : J.. Acute inflammation of the liver. iw.-.ti — 169 — 2. Dropsy ; the liver is pale and firm. 3- Liver gets, so to speak, worn away. 4- Flukes, generally in May and June, leave the liver. As we mentioned in a former part of this essay, sheep, in the earlier stage of the invasion of the fluke, profit in some mysterious way and absolutelv get fat very quickly ; in consequence of which pe- culiarity, butchers sometimes put their sheep on unsound land shortly before slaughtering. We never heard of any sure cure for the rot • keeping sheep out of low-lying, unchained land is the best preventive. After severe, frostv winters, after a series of dry summers and falls, the disease IS less prevalent than when those seasons have been wet. Says Prof. Wrightson : ,, To cure a rotten sheep is looked upon by many as hopeless. If, however, the animal outlives the expulsion of tliJ flukes, it may recover. Professor Simond's recipe will prove a good guide, and is as follows : «Take of bruised linseed-cake and pease meal of each a bushel ; 4 tt.s. each of salt and aniseed ; i It., of sulphate of iron ; grind all these together finely, and give to each sheep from half to one pint dailv! Salt is an excellent tonic, and no sheep grazed on salt-marshes are ever affected by the rot. Change of diet is also insisted upon, and stimulants, such as I — 170 — turpentine and sulphuric ether, are recommended. Fortify the system in every way possible, by good hygiene, tonics and stimulants. » Above all things, keep your sheep out of dangerous pastures ; such as are known in your neighbourhood as « always giving sheep the rot. » THRUSH OR CANKER Every one wh6 has kept breeding ewes knows this complaint. It affects both lamb and dam, though in different ways. The lambs suffer from sore mouth, the ewes from pimples and a sort of scab on the teat. The first sign of its appearance is that the ewes will not stand still to be sucked ; then, naturally, the lambs wander about hungry and dissatisfied, continually trying to get food and con- tinually getting discontented. Cure there is none ; it has to be 1 orne with, and only a change to warm weather and plenty of green-meat have any allevi- ating power over it. When ewes are troubled with sore udders, the symptom of this complaint, they should be freely lanced, the lambs being of course taken from them and « brought up by hand. » A mild dose of Epsom- salts, with a trifle of coriander seed or aniseed, should be the first remedy, followed by a little pow- dered columba root and salt in their trough-food, twice daily. As a dressing for the udder, a 5^ so- lution of carbolic acid, applied twice a day, will aid vi^ imn — 171 — in healing wounds and dispersing the eruption — a weak solution of alum will do as well. The mouths of the lambs should be washed out with a solution of chlorate of potash, lo grs. to theoz., just enough to moisten the surface without allowing any to be swallowed. Where proud flesh appears on the gums or lips, it should be carefully touched with lunar caustic, and any loose tooth should be removed. Youatt recommends that the mouth should be wash- ed two or three times a week with a solution of alum, or diluted tincture of myrrh, and that a cou- ple of oz. of Epsom-salts should be administered. No doubt, the disease is caused by damp lodgings, cold, raw weather, &c. Some assign it to feeding among harsh stubble, or stony ground ; but though individual cases may spring from these causes, we cannot think they will account for the wholesale losses experienced by some of our leading English flockmasters. FOOT-ROT Of this malady, the treatment, as far as I know, is, or at any rate was, the universal treatment pursued by all South of England shepherds. Of •< butyr » of antimony, which Youatt recommends, as I did in my previous recipe, lie says : *' There is no application comparable to this. It is effectual as a superficial caustic ; and it so readily combines with the fluids belonging to the part to which it is tlS«C^ ' .f — 172 — applied, that it quickly becomes diluted and com- paratively powerless, and is incapable of producing any deep or corroding mischief. » If, in operating, the hoof has been too severely deprived of its horny covering, bandage it. Trim the feet of whole flock to prevent the wall of the hoof from growing too long so as to double mider the foot. When paring the foot for the di :ease, previous to the dressing with butter of antimony, take care to get to the very bottom of th€ loose horn. I used to harden my heart when about this job, and it was needed, for the struggles of so gentle animal as the sheep in pain are by no means agreable to one who is not used to performing vivisection. Fortunately for our farmers in this province, sheep are rarely affected by that horrible complaint, the foot-rot. Still, some years ago, it would seem, from the reports of the Chicago Market, some recently imported Shropshires were attacked with it shortly after their arrival. The buyer made a terrible fuss about it, and no wonder. The seller, whom I know to have been utterly ignorant of the mishap, was called all sorts of name, as if he could have detected the latent malady. I never could understand why long-wools should be so much more subject to this complaint in the feet than Downs and other short-wools ; but such is doubtless the case; a very nasty complaint it is, and nothing but patience and persisteiiL attention will cure it ;'cout- -rrsTBietsffi^^S mm — ^n — agious too, without a doubt, and, I believe, worse in wet than in dry seasons. The foot-rot attacks the hoof, in the division, and gradually works its way upwards under the horn. If sheep are kept on damp straw in the latter autumn and in spring, that will be a favourable opportunity for the foot-rot to "get in its work. » As I mentioned before, there is not much danger in allowing the bedding to accumulate in hard weather ; but in mild seasons, I should prefer, if ^here is any chance of foot-rot affecting the flock, making a floor of boards, laid, say, three-quarters of an inch apart and about 3 feet from the ground. These boards should be swept twice a day, and occasionnally sprinkled with some dissinfectant. The droppings could be drawn out from under the boards, and, mixed with bone-dust or superphos- phate, would be a famous manure for rape or turn- ips. Do you fancy the sheep would not like tc repose on boards ? just watch them in summer, and you will see that they alwa) s select the hardest parts of the field to lie on in their noon siesta. To preserve the urine, a few bushels of spent tan-bark might be used in the pit under the boards as an absorbent, and if the dissinfectant is frequently used, there will be no perceptible smell, and the nitrogen will of course be preserved intact. But the question we were considering is, how to cure the foot-rol. Well, I have cured it with mv mmt^ nmnnn — 174 — means pleasant trouble i ^^^ .^^ when it comes. all the homy part °f *^ J-^' ^^„ ^^e flesh so as to „i„ed, tatag cate not to cut mt ^ ^^^^^^^_ „ake the blood flow Then app^>^^^ all over the part eft toe » ^^^ ^^^ Mr. Stephens calls *'/,""n the remedy, and that disease is far -- P^*"' ^^w^ I" Junder this p,i„Ucont,nuo^. The fl s .^ ^^^^,^ treatment, but it yo" r j^. animal will be cured, and, "^^"V '^"^ j^f ^ u -"^ -n '^ouTd *:reT;n.ot::d toVomong „rta.n^y would we« ^ ^ ^^^^^^^^ g^^_ untreated. in>s, a» several the only cure for the root^t The ^^^ remedies prescribed m the books^o^ but I never flock through newiy slaked lime, itc, knew them do much good. FLIES THere are three soru Of flies tl^ta.^^^^^^^^ sheep : the common fly, the tick ny, fly. — 175 — Of the common fly there are several kinds,of which the house-fly or musca domestica is one. Whether this unwelcome and persistent worrier of the human race ever gets into the country and persecute the sheep, is a matter of doubt ; but there is no doubt that several of his brothers, the diptera, or two winged flies, exercise that malevolent office. « Buz- zing round their tails, settling on the dung, and busily looking over for a place where .she may lay her young, are various forms of those larger and even more offensive creatures, the meat-fly or blue-bottle, or bronze-coloured cousins of the same kind.» « These creatures, which are the horror of the pedestrian, the horse-man, and the shepherd, are well known to all of us ; they frequent country sides near the bush, wherever wooded districts are found, but do not care so much for open pastures.* « Of the sheep, two vulnerable points are their favourites, the head and the tail. Unfortunately, the Southdown breed, having less wool on their heads than other sheep, are not so well protected from the attacks of the fly as are the Shropshires, the Cotswolds, and, in a measure, the Hampshire- downs. As soon as one fly lights on a trifling sore spot, whether caused by the friction of a piece of lirt, or what not, he sets to work to make further discoveries ; soon, others join in the work ; they crowd on to the poor thing's unhappy head and dive into the flesh for a juicy suck, until a broad scald MICROCOPY RESGtUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 1*5 156 1^ ^ ""^^ lllll^^B "^ 11^ ■ 3^ 11111^= 2.0 140 1.8 ^ APPLIED IIVHGE Inc ^^ 1653 Eost Main Street rjS Rochester, Ne» York 14609 USA ^S (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone aaS (716) 288 - 5989 - Fox f I ;! i: 176 extending all over the forehead is effected. You miy eiiW tell when the fly is at work : the sheep Z from place to place, with his head down ; stoi« sXenly, stamps his feet, in fact is nearly crazy "uh inl ation. How can a sheep thrive that rs m Tuch torment? How comfortable do you feel when the . black-fly • attacks yon as you are salmon fishing below Quebec ? Hogg, th' -Ettrick Shepherd., gives a staple remedy Lgainst the fly. - 1 happened to be assisting atTheUing of sheep of the Cheviot breed whe- sundry of their heads were broke wth flics, (i) Theshepherdsbroughtthemoutofthefoldwiththe intention of smearing the sore parts ">*«"•' advised them to anoint them with coarse whale^l, such as they mixed with the tar, having several riml seen sires softened and healed by it. Some » it being neat at hand, they consented. The tties were af this time settled upon the fold in such „„mbers that when we went among the sheep we Zm2^ difiicnlty see each other, but to our utter astonishment, when those who were anointed were turned among the rest, in less than a minute not a fly was visible ! » Whether this application of whale^il was a new discovery or not, I do not know ; but it is certain that whale-oil, commonly called train-oil, is now looked "TT^c c..ayi.t i« not answerable for Mr. Hogg's English. — 177 — upon as a sure safeguard against the attacks of the common fly. A little sulphur mixed with the oil is an improvement. As it is so invariable in its beneficial effects, it is a matter of astonishment that it is not more generally known. Of the sheep cap I spoke already at length but it must be borne in mind, as I said before, that a cap must never be put on a head that is already sore, lest an attack from the fly should have pro- duced eggs, and the maggots from the eggs should have hatched and begun their ravages without the shepherd having had a chance to espy them. Some maggots are bred in the dung or in the dirt adher- ing to the coat, and soon make their way into the flesh. There, they produce redness, soreness and an exudation of matter. The symptoms exhibited by the sheep are pretty much the same as those mentioned above. The mineral known as « mercnry-stone, » is said, by Mr. Wrightson, to quickly kill the maggot, so shepherds should always carry a piece of this with them. It is just like a piece of slate pencil, and can be got at any chemist's. To part the wool, and thoroughly rub the place affected with the mercury-stone, speedily kills the maggots, which ought, however, to be brushed out by the hand until they are all got rid of. Spirits of tar also nas a good effect, and my good friend, Mr. Henry Gray, ti 1 -178- of St-Lawreuce Main Street, Montreal, has a very crood mixture for the purpose. "^ When magcotsare neglected, the sheep pulls his V\ nen lud^t,^ » , , • i^ecomes .vool off with h.s teeth, and 1 ^ , thesUn ^^^^ hard and dry and comes off 3nst as it burnt or scalded. THE SHEEP BOT-FLY This fly is of the same order as the horse-fly. i!,r knotted wit'i black. Youatt says .that f ^tonforSse pests appear, t»e who|e flock .s t:-the greatest agitation.. H,s v-e-m sJola> „s eggs i„st in the '-^^-^^f^^U :pX ^e tl-y soon 1-f ■ -f^^f j;:j\,Te Lntal sinuses, ::l'teXn=s oni.it tentacles tiii the following summer. Dnrinc. the passage up the nostrils they ate ve^' JSn. u-ntil they- ^^^^^^^f^ lected home. -'>-;^,^>-, ^ Teld ." find an exit ^^- — ^^^2s^:;c:=- constant snee^ng of t^e s^eep ^^^_ .^ ^^._ rd^Sg.- blt'as our authorities give no cure' for its attacks, we will not pursue .t any fuf ther. — 179 — THE OID OR STURDY Almost every sheep-breeder has noticed that from time to time, not frequently, thank gracious, a mysterious complaint attacks lambs, generally with fatal effect. This is the sturdy or gid, so called be- cause the lambs under its influence are invariably giddy and turn round from right to left, or the reverse ; sometimes standing as if fixed to the spot, and refusing to move on. Gid is another form of animal parasitism, and owes its origin to one or more cystic, i. e., bladder-like parasite in the brain. This parasite invades the brain in the following manner : the bladder-worm, as it is sometimes call- ed, varies in size from a hemps d, when young, to a cricket-ball, when full grown. They are derived from a tapeworm which infest the dog, and are in reality the yo'.ng of that creature. Just as the maggots that we find in fiesh are the young of the blow-fly, so are these hydatids (water-filled sacs) the young of the tapeworm. Each hydatid, how- ever, represents not one but a brood of \oung tape- worms. How many, may be known by counting the little w . spots on the walls of the bladder, which are, in fact, the heads from which future tapeworms are to spring, should the\-,by any chance, find their way into the belly of the dog. Without the dog, and other members of the same species there could be no gid-parasites, and, consequenth-, no giddy sheep. The lamb acts as a host towards ^Ji — i8o — f;r:;:iie:nneg.sato„cetoth„t seements and become a complete tapewo™ It is aU vey wonderful; without sheep, and others of ^ ^ ^e fhpre could be no tapeworm. causes its sudden death by epilepsy. To get rid of the gid, it must be lemembeted that JabiUtisthebrain, and that, coiisequenUyg^aJ care in the manipulation is necessary. Some punc writhe bladder' or cvst with a sharp i— « , Tnd draw out the <^^:J^]:^^ Inn !houW be watched closely, and if any segments of he tapeworm are seen in their excrements, they I ; d bfrhut up and not allowed to leave the ; .1 „„til the worm is completely got nd of. A arof e a! t, followed by a good dose of castor- oil should be administered, and every atom of tape- I'rm, expelled by the medicine, should be burned. THR TICK When sheep are seen to tak. every opportunity of rubb'ng themselves against posts, Sec, it may gen- — i8i — erally be concluded that they are troubled with the lick. The little beast is small, with a red head, and its body is of a pale yellow-colour. The tick fre- quents both sides of the sheep's neck, and the inside of both shoulders and thighs. When sheep are dipped, ticks will not often be found troublesome. DIARRHOiA Commonly called by shepherds, white scours. Not dangerous if taken in time. Our usual cure for it, in the South of England, was a change on to a piece of sainfoin. Sain-foin, from the French signifies « wholesome hay.w Nothing causes scouring so often as a change from a bare pasture to a very luxuriant one ; or a sudden flush of grass after a spell of rain, will have the same effect. A table-spoonful of castor oil, with a dash of ginger in it will do good but attention to the food of the flock is the main thing. Too much tampering with physic in the herd or the flock is a dangerous thing, and now that veterinary surgeons are to be found in every the smallest town in the province, one of these practitioners should be called in if any unusual symptoms appear to invade the flock. of T' i££l — 182 — A HEROIC TREATMENT {From the French) , An experiment. In July, 1885, I tried the fol- ,/inexy Havino- found in the fields one three miles fro* the place whe.e I found them. She was very ill ; her nostrils were choked up, ant:hrdsoLtr;ctedthatitsee.^--f- cation must immediately take place. The following is the treatment I pursued : . I drenched her with three ^-^'-^^f^'^^;, ^Itts after this treatment, she was up on her feet minutes aiter a ^^^ and trying to eat some hay. For food, 1 g o little bran with some oatmeal and hay , ner u ahtt e bran ^^ -^^s of linseed tea thrice a r Afte toe day of this treatment, I gave her day. After tnree oay ^^^^^ . ^^^ nttk?Zetet:"i away as usual in T % il tS lamb I sold in September for ten ^-l^f..dTh:e:: remained with me in ^.rfect health.)) -183- As for making ewe-milk cheese, we have seen quite enough of that on the « Borders. » The pail has to be placed under the tail of the ewe when she is being milked, and, in spite of all the care takeii by the milker, it is easy to see that filth, both liquid and solid, will fall into it : not a nice idea ! Mr. Chapais states that the Larzac ewes, from whose milk the celebrated Roquefort cheese is made, give, after having weaned their lambs, 55 quarts of milk, from which 24 lbs of cheese are made, in 160 days, which is equal to 2.40 oz. a day. Would the value of this pay for the labour expended ? Would it be worth while to wear out the ewe, who [needs all possible means of recovering her strength after weaning her lamb, for such a trifle as 24 pounds of cheese ? Mr. Chapais makes the milk of the ewe contain seven and a half per cent, of butter and six per cert of casein. Stewart, in his book, « Feeding animals, » gives the following as the average com- position of ewe's milk : Casein 4.50 Butter 4.20 8.70 Whereas, according to Mr, Chapais, the ewe of J^arzac gives ; — i84 — Casein 6-oo Butter 7-50 13-50 Leaving a balance in favour of the Larzac ewe of 4.80 ! u INDEX A Age of Sheep ^^^ B Border- Leicester ^«^-piy '■'■.■.■.■.■;;:;:::: i,8 c '"anker (Thrush oi) ^ _q Cans ^ 115 Castration 107 Cotswold , y D Diarrhoea g Dipping 97 Disease of Sheep ^^^ Dorset-Horn T>> Drafting the Flock 94 1 i iUI — i86 — Page E Ewe-tegs ^39 F Fiies 174 Folds 132 Foods (Mixed) 3 20 Foot-Rot • • • 171 G Gid (or Sturdy) i79 H Hampshire-Down 4^ Horsebeans ^"^^ Hurdles J 12-. 30 L Lambing 100 Lambs after weaning 129 Leicester 25 Leicester (Bor-ler) 34 Leicester (Improved) 29 Lincoln 3^ - i8> - Page M Management of the Flock 7^ Mixed Foods 120 O Oxfordshire-Down 57 R Racks ^7 Rams '• 95 Rot 167 Rot (Foot) 171 S Sainfoin 121 Shearing Sheep i47 Show-Sheep 124 Shropshire 61 Southdown 4^^ Sturdy (Gid or) i79 Suffolk-Downs 7° T Tares or Vetches 109 Thrush or Canker 170 — i88 — Page Tick 180 V Vetches (Tares or) 109 W Washing Sheep 147 Weaning (Lambs after) 129 Weaning of Lainbs; 117 ^ 11