In Argyleshire, the principal circumstances attended to by the most
intelligent sheep-farmers are these: to stock lightly, which will mend
the size of the sheep, with the quantity and quality of the wool, and
also render them less subject to diseases; (in all these respects it is
allowed, by good judges, that five hundred sheep, kept well, will
return more profit than six hundred kept indifferently;) to select the
best lambs, and such as have the finest, closest, and whitest wool, for
tups and breeding ewes, and to cut and spay the worst; to get a change
of rams frequently, and of breeding ewes occasionally; to put the best
tups to the best ewes, which is considered necessary for bringing any
breed to perfection; not to top three-year-old ewes, (which, in bad
seasons especially, would render the lambs produced by them of little
value, as the lambs would not have a sufficiency of milk; and would also
tend to lessen the size of the stock;) to keep no rams above three, or
at most four years old, nor any breeding ewes above five or six; to
separate the rams from the 10th of October, for a month or six weeks, to
prevent the lambs from coming too early in the spring; to separate the
lambs between the 15th and 25th of June; to have good grass prepared for
them; and if they can, to keep them separate, and on good grass all
winter, that they may be better attended to, and have the better chance
of avoiding disease. A few, whose possessions allow them to do it, keep
not only their lambs, but also their wethers, ewes, &c., in separate
places, by which every man, having his own charge, can attend to it
better than if all were in common; and each kind has its pasture that
best suits it.