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ON THE LIVE-STOCK

3. A Breeding and Fattening Stock.

There are no farms on the Cheviot hills, adapted to thatmanagement, which requires that all the lambs should be notonly reared, but the whole stock fattened; but there are se-veral instances of farms that prepare all the wethers for tur-nips, which are purchased by the store-farmers in the lowcountry, so that the same man carries them forward fromtheir birth to the butcher. The draft ewes are also sometimesfed in the same manner, but more commonly they are sold leanto farmers in the low country, who keep them another year,fattening the lambs first, and the ewes afterwards.

The last practice is still adopted on many farms, though itis not so general as formerly. The ewes are brought fromthe Cheviot hills in September or October, put to a coarseLeicester ram, get a few turnips in winter, bring lambs inMarch, and are put on sown grasses where they make thelambs fat in June. The ewes are afterwards fattened onthe same pasture, with the addition of the aftermath of thehay field, and if necessary a few turnips. This is what iscalled njlying stock.

It has been already noticed, that there are several situa-tions around Cheviot, where a breeding stock cannot be kept;and when these farms are not conjoined with others in theoccupation of one store-farmer, they must be employed insummering lambs, or wethers, which are sometimes sold an-nually like the ewe stock on better lands. Several farms ofa similar description, arc also exclusively appropriated to_thewintering of hogs.

The pure Cheviot breed has been frequently intermixedwith other races, particularly with the heath sheep on the onehand, and the Leicester on the other. But neither of thesecrosses are approved of for the pastures around Cheviot; bythe fonner, the wool w'ould be greatly deteriorated, and bythe latter, the stock would be rendered too delicate,—though