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.
261/276 page 65
![[65] is to pay in her stay with us, than in her sale to the feeder. The ewe that is not bred to much hone is more hardy, and may be laid more numerously on a hirsling, than large hungry honey ewes can ; and there- fore, with the ewe lamb, we pursue a different course from what we do with the wether. After being speaned, and the bleat settled, it is sent to hog land in Strathnaver—ground not too high nor too grassy, but, if possible, having a good mixture of heather and cotton grass, with a tolerable quantity of fine land ; here it remains with me until clipped, with other farmers only until mossing-time, in March ; then it is sent to inferior and more mountainous ground, where the two-year old ewes, or rough gimmers, he, and where there is generally twice the quantity of sum- mer that there is of winter feed. On this high ground they remain about sixteen months, until the cast of the ewes of that year go off to the feeder. Their place they fill up, leaving behind them, in the gimmer land, the ewe hogs of the preceding year, which have to wait their turn to come to a ewe herding. Morvich is at present filled up with the Merino flock, and fine ewes, but my intention is, how soon the Me- linoes may be bred in, or gave to the feeder, to bring in my cast of ewes to this low ground at four-years old, and take their last lamb here, at an earlier season than is possible in the Highlands. This concludes what I have got to say about the flocks, except to explain how we send them to market. When Atkinson and Marshall began, and for some years posterior, the farmer had no resource but mount his poney, and accompany his drove to Falkirk, or the border markets ; and his wool, in like manner, he had [e]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24880395_0261.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)


