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.
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![[62] them to do what the shepherds call “ lying abroad,” upon the waste, or to mingle with sheep of any other kind. After taking their walk every day over their range of pasture, in the way I have describe, they form a sort of camp at night on the highest part of their ground, and may be certainly found there at day break next morning, lying so closely that they touch each other, the strongest sheep outside and the weak in the centre. Owing to this disposition of the merinoes, they are not suitable^to these wastes of peat bog ; not, that they don’t thrive there and yield wool in abundance, and of the first quality ; but that, as three fourth parts of the wastes consist of Alpine plants which they reject, the same quantity of Sutherland ground will keep three hundred Cheviots, that will maintain one hundred meri- nos, and that with one-half the care, and one-third part of the risk in winter. I have hred up my merino flock from two hundred to six hundred of as fine sheep of the kind, and as thriving too, as ever stepped on hill ground. They got no hand feeding; nothing beyond their own finding during last winter, except about six acres of inferior turnips at Morvich to the hogs and fourteen days hay during the depth of winter. They have paid me very well; their mutton at five years old is fine maxbled and high flavoured mutton, and every body whom we have deceived with it, said it was the best mutton possible ; yet, I am about to cross them into Cheviot, and that on this account, that they are not the kind that will suit as a general stent for Sutherland. They won’t pay in Strathnaver, for instance ; and, in breeding^ they interfere with my more extensive and important flocks, which are the genuine moss sheep, that will pay for im-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24880395_0258.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
