This one extract will alone illustrate the opinion we have already expressed, in regard to the soundness and safety of the advice on practical subjects, which our author ventures to give.
We pass over a hundred pages devoted to ploughing and sowing, and the selection of seed. On the last of which points our inclination would lead us to dwell—especially in reference to the steeping of seeds, a subject which at present engages so much attention, and upon which so much nonsense and mercantile puffing has been recently expended. But our limits restrain us.
Whether it is that our own predilections incline us more to those parts of his book, or that Mr Stephens writes these better—with heart and kindliness he certainly does write[29]—we scarcely know, but we certainly like all his chapter upon animals. The lambing of ewes is the subject of chapter fifty-four.
In all lines of life there are the skilful and the unskilful, and the former are always the fewer in number. In reference to shepherds, Mr Stephens says:—
"No better proof need be adduced of the fewness of skilful shepherds, than the loss which every breeder of sheep sustains every year, especially in bad weather. I knew a shepherd who possessed unwearied attention, but was deficient in skill, and being over-anxious, always assisted the ewes in lambing before the proper time; and as he kept the ewes in too high condition, the consequence was, that every year he lost a number of both ewes and lambs; and in one season of bad weather the loss amounted to the large number of twenty-six ewes, and I forget of how many lambs, in a dock of only ten score of ewes. I knew another shepherd who was far from being solicitous about his charge, though certainly not careless of it, yet his skill was so undoubted, that he chiefly depended upon it, and his success was so eminent, that the loss of a ewe or lamb under his charge was matter of surprise. Of these two shepherds—the attentive and the skilful—it would appear that the skilful is the safer, and of course the more valuable, though it must be owned, that it is better to prevent evils by skilful attention, than to cure them by attentive skill; yet it is only by the union of both these qualities that a perfect shepherd can be formed."—(Vol. ii. p. 600.)
Perhaps some of our readers are acquainted with Price on Sheep, a book in which the treatment of the Leicester sheep is especially described. After commenting upon what this author says of the losses experienced in lambing-time by the southern breeders, Mr Stephens pays the following deserved compliment to the intelligent shepherds of Scotland:—
"I would not have noticed these egregious blunders, said by Mr Price to be committed by shepherds in a low country like Romney Marsh, in Kent, so prominently, had not Mr Youatt adopted the sentiments of Mr Price in the very particulars quoted above, in his excellent treatise on the history and diseases of sheep. Were a shepherd of a Leicester flock in Scotland made aware that he was suspected of such ignorance of the nature of sheep, he would be quite ashamed; and so would shepherds even of the hill country, who cannot have so intimate a knowledge of every individual of their flock, usually occupying a wide range of mountain land, as their brethren of the profession tending flocks within much more limited bounds."—(Vol. ii. p. 602.)
Among the more immediate symptoms of lambing, there are two which have struck us as very interesting. We have put them in italics in the following quotation:—
"The more immediate symptoms of lambing are when the ewe stretches herself frequently; separating herself from her companions; exhibiting restlessness by not remaining in one place for any length of time; lying down and rising up again, as if dissatisfied with the place; pawing the ground with a forefoot; bleating as if in quest of a lamb; and appearing fond of the lambs of other ewes."—(Vol. ii. p. 603.)
In regard to pet lambs—such as are brought up by hand because their mothers have died, and it has been impossible to mother then upon other ewes—the following observation shows their innocent simplicity:—