t often practised on heavy land, that of
eking out a scanty supply of green food by a liberal allowance
of straw, chaff, and grain; which happily were good in quality,
as well as plentiful and low in price in 1864.

By these means we were enabled last winter to keep 1,500 sheep
on about 650 acres of arable, and 350 acres of dry upland
pasture--chiefly park surrounding a mansion. The arable land
does not very well bear folding in winter, as a preparation for
spring corn. Neither climate nor soil are favorable to turnips,
and notwithstanding our efforts in assisting Nature, our crops
of turnips, rape, or Swedes, are never first-rate, and sometimes
very bad. Strong stubbles, good beans, clover-seed, and mangel,
are the specialities of the locality, and they indicate heavy
land, corn-growing, and yard-feeding. Sheep have been generally
"conspicuous by their absence," though even the heavy-land farmer
is glad to winter a yard of them instead of cattle, that he may
keep some, at least, of the stock that pays best.

In the autumn of 1864 our root crops consisted of some white
turnips and rape, eaten by the ewes in September, and of a very
bad crop of mangel, the whole of which was reserved for the ewes
at lambing-time. In this predicament we wintered about 1,000
half-bred lambs, more than 400 ewes, and some fatting sheep.
All, except the fatting sheep, were folded on the stubbles, and
allowed a daily run on the park of about an hour for each flock.
The freshest grass was reserved for the ewes, and a very meagre
bite remained for the lambs; in fact, except for a few weeks
in autumn, the parks afforded them little or nothing except
exercise and water.

The flocks were divided between three separate farms, and their
food was prepared at the respective homesteads. The treatment
was in every respect similar; we shall therefore only notice in
detail the management at one farm.

The following details are taken from our "Live Stock Book:"--

EXTRACTS FROM STOCK BOOK.

_Lambs._

Payments. Remarks.

_November 4th, 1864._
L s. d.

352 lambs, cost at date, 30s. 9-1/2d. each 542 2 3 (a)
_Cost of keeping 24 weeks to April 21, 1865_:-- (b)
Corn and