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ON THE IHVJi-sTOCK
longer when carted to a grass field, the sheep are found tofatten sooner when they eat them on the ground, and theland itself is at the same time so much ameliorated by theirdung and treading, that turnips are very seldom given todinmonts and cast-ewes on grass fields, except the wea-ther be very wet and stormy. A grass field, however, con-tiguous to the turnips, upon which the sheep may lie clean,and return to the turnips at pleasure, is a valuable accommo-dation. It is very usual to place a hay-rack in the turnip-field, though the sheep eat very little hay, except during hardfrosts, when they are hardly able to bite the turnips. Ashogs of this breed shed their teeth early in spring, it becomesnecessary to cut their turnips afterwards, which is done by amachine when the number is considerable, and they are serv-ed up in mangers.
3. The ewes drop their lambs, from the second week ofMarch, to the second week of April, and at an average athiul part of the flock have twins, or every sixty ewes bringeighty lambs. The males are ahvays castrated, except suchas are to be kept for rams, when only a few days old, andthe whole lambs are weaned about the end of June. Thewether-lambs are put on to full feeding, as soon as they areseparated from their dams, and the ewe-lambs to pasturesof an inferior description. The ewes are milked two or threetimes to ease their udders, but seldom or never with any viewto profit, as in the case of the breeds already described.
4. The whole flock is shorn as soon as the growth of thewool, and the state of the weather will permit, beginning withthe tups, dinmonts, and wether hogs, then the ewe hogs, andafterwards the breeding ewes. This operation is performeddifferently in this and in the smaller breeds. The shearer orclipper, raises the animal on its buttocks, and, beginning atthe neck, clips in a circular direction from the belly to theback-bone, first with one hand and then the other. Somedays before they are shorn, the sheep are carefully washedby men who stand in a running stream. Each sheep is hand-