An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford, in the counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the estate of Sutherland : with remarks. Pt.1, Sutherland / by James Loch.
- James Loch
- Date:
- 1820
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford, in the counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the estate of Sutherland : with remarks. Pt.1, Sutherland / by James Loch. Source: Wellcome Collection.
255/276 page 59
![[69] Scotland from which hc takes his name ; hut within the last fifty years very much improved in his quarters and in the staple of his fleece by crosses with sheep, as I learned in Herefordshire, recommended some fifty years ago, to the Border farmers by Mr. Bakewell, the patron of the Gulleys. In some oases, perhaps in too many, he has also got a little dash of Leicester blood in him. His wool is of a coarser and broader quality than the South Down, though not a great deal inferior in fineness, and many of the hest border farmers are satisfied that too much has been done to fine his coat, and that more than has been given him in quality is subtracted in quantity and in strength of constitution. The Border store farmers divide their fiocks into distinct parcels or hirsels. For instance, ewes form a flock by themselves. When the lambs come to be three months old, and are separated from their mothers, they are kept on a separate herding or farm. When these again are twelve months old, at which time they give their first fleece, the males are generally separated from the females ; the female returned to the ewe hirsels. where she gives a lamb at two years old, and the male is sent to wether ground, from which, after one year and a half’s keep, he is at two years and a half old sent to the feeder ; and, the ewe after giving three lambs goes to the same destination. Messrs. Atkinson and Marshall, and Morton, and Gulley, conduct their flocks in Sutherland upon a plan, differing a good deal from what I found common on the Borders ; that is, in place of returning their yearling ewes, or what they call gimmers to the ewe hirsel at that early age, they send them for eighteen months or nearly so, to land called “ yell gimmer land,”- from](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24880395_0255.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
