Author of "The Cow and Calf," "The Sheep and the Lamb," "Farming to Profil in Modern Times," "Cattle: Their Management in Dairy, Field, and Stall," "The Botfly of the Ox, Its Destruction," etc.

SHEEP FARMING throughout the United Kingdom is far away the most profitable occupation associated with land. Indeed, sheep have never failed to give good returns except in times of plagues such as the fluke disease, which fortunately seldom occurs. There is no need for an acre of fertile land in the country to go out of cultivation while sheep grazing pays so well. One or other breeds are adapted to different soils, so all that is needed is energy, capital, and judgment to make this branch of farming a success. Even the wild mountainous districts. of Scotland answer well for horned Scotch sheep, the meagre swards on the Welsh mountains give feed for the ovine animals named after the district where they are bred, the scant herbage on the Down lands of England fatten the hardy little Southdowns, while the rich lands of Lincolnshire, Cambridge, and the Midland counties. are capable of raising and fattening such flocks as Longwools, Shropshires, Hampshires, and Oxfordshire Downs. Many of the animals are as well adapted for arable as pasture land, so that isolated parts of the country lying remote from railways or towns are profitable for

sheep farming. It has been truly written in ancient records that “sheep tread with golden feet," for they improve all land that they run over, and many farmers of arable land would get on much better than they do if they increased their flocks. It is a deplorable sight for practical farmers to pass over many parts of the kingdom, and observe the vast spaces of land thrown up to the fowls of the air that might well raise numberless flocks of sheep to supply our markets, and thus find the public in wholesome meat and at the same time stop the influx of foreign animals.

Sheep farming is one of the most pleasant occupations I know. It is the "beau ideal" of employment for a country gentleman. A few good shepherds and helps, with some faithful dogs, are sufficient to take care of thousands of sheep. Labourers are difficult to get on arable land, but in raising ovine flocks one is not troubled with the paucity of hands. The greatest curse to British farming has been allowing unprofitable arable land to tumble into pasture, or rather weed beds, instead of thoroughly cleaning, seeding down, and grazing it with sheep. It is surely a happy state of things for one who has invested in land to find that it is year by year becoming enriched by ovine flocks, while the latter are profitable to a degree. There is no fear that the business will be over done, for, with the ever increasing population and improvement in trade, the demand for mutton will always be brisk; such meat being the favourite diet of all classes.

PROFITS FROM SHEEP ARE MANIFOLD. I. In the meat, whether from fat lambs, ripe wethers and theaves, or from well-made-up ewes after they have brought several lots of lambs. There is no easier way of making rent than by breeding store sheep for market. Many a year, during long experience in farming, I have found prolific

ewes to pay as much per head in a year as horned cattle have for summering, yet they do not cost anything approaching as much in food and attention. 2. The wool. It is true this commodity does not sell so well as in years gone by; possibly there may be an improvement in markets by-and-by. Be this as it may, wool at its lowest gives from five shillings to ten shillings per head, and sells at a time of the year when not much is being made off the farm otherwise. 3. As to the golden feet. Wherever sheep tread they improve the land. There are vast quantities of arable land which is so light, or hover, as Scotchmen term it, that would bear no crops were it not for consolidation given by the trampling of sheep. Then there is the excreta from the animals, both solid and fluid, that proves a rich manuring. Folding sheep on arable land has been greatly neglected of late. Several decades ago sheep were folded on summer fallows every night at sunset-thus the fields got a rich manuring. This practice is thought to be robbing "Peter to pay Paul," by feeding arable land at the expense of grass. This by no means follows, for there are often rich pasture fields made rich chiefly by sheep grazing that would do just as well without the droppings which are so useful to poor arable land. In farming to profit all these things must be looked to, and then the arable and pasture lands of England will soon display a more fruitful appearance. Still, it really appears that a new race of cultivators of the soil must in many instances be employed, for to trundle down old ruts will not do at any price. In my opinion, sheep in the future will hold a much more prominent position on the farm than they have held in the past.

BREEDING SHEEP.-I am a great advocate for breeding rather than purchasing flocks to fatten off

wherever land is adapted to the purpose. One gets such an increase in the fall of lambs, that it is all selling out and no buying in. Such breeds as most of the Downs bring more than half twins, and the ewes do their lambs right well, providing they get some extra food before grass comes. On fairly good land single lambs may be got off fat to the butcher early in summer, which gives the ewes a chance to get fat in the prevailing year. Twins can be profitably kept for stores, the males for fattening after being shorn once, while the females can be brought into the flock to take the place of full-mouthed sheep that need culling. Young sound healthy rams should be used to equally healthy ewes, and the first signs of disease in either should be a warning to sell them off as soon as possible.

JOHN WALKER.

CHAPTER LX.

RABBITS: THEIR CULTURE AND USES.

BY THE REV. V. H. MOYLE, M.A., F.R. H.S.,

Vicar of Ashampstead, Berks; Member of the Council of the Swanley Horticultural College; Vice-President of the Berks, and also of the Wilts, Bee Keepers' Association; and Sole Medallist for Honey and Wax Applications at the Health Exhibition, 1884, and many other places, 1885-90, and '91.

ALTHOUGH the wild rabbit abounds in this country and has become a perfect scourge in Australia, there are still great needs of an increase in the supply of tame rabbits in our land as an article of food for our towns and cities, where they are so much in demand that the continent has to supply our shortcomings in the matter, much to our discredit.

I will not refer to the published statistics of the Board of Trade herein, but urge on my fellow countrymen to remedy this deficiency. As an old rabbit keeper myself, at one time having five hundred does of different kinds, each in her own hutch, and having long supplied London and other customers with "bunnies, living and dead, both fancy and common, I know something of rabbit culture, and am glad here for the public good to narrate some of my experiences. I found a ready sale for good rabbits all the year round, and especially for the "tames" when the "wilds" were not in season. The rabbits (tame) best known in this country are:

(1.) The Giant of Flanders, which reaches as much as sixteen pounds sometimes, and even more.