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SCOTTISH REVIEW.

I. A Treatise on the Diseases and Management of Sheep; with introductory remarks on their anatomical structure; and an appendix containing documents exhibiting the value of the Merino breed of Sheep, and their progress in Scotland. By Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, Bart. 8vo. plates. 7s. 6d. Constable and Co.

WE
try, more honourable, or likely to be
attended with more important advan-
tages, than the attention paid by men
of rank and fortune to the various ob-
jects of public improvement, particu-
larly in agriculture. The example
thus set, is of the very best influence.
It attaches, in the eyes of the multitude,
a dignity and interest to these objects,
which their intrinsic usefulness would
have been unable to secure. It

E know of nothing, in the pre-
sent circumstances of the coun-

tends also to inspire a spirit of active improvement, which might otherwise have slumbered. In men who pursue farming as a livelihood, there is a natural tendency to follow safe and established practices, and to view with jealousy all untried innovations, Men' of fortune, on the contrary, who consider farming as an object of liberal curiosity, are ambitious to deviate from the beaten track, and to distinguish themselves by new improvements and discoveries. The public benefit by the fruits of this disposition, and they benefit still more perhaps by thespirit of activity which this example diffuses among farmers in general. It forms one of the best means of overcoming that vis inertia, that sluggish indolence and attachment to old habits, which is apt to settle upon men placed in the country, and, at a distance from scenes of active business, Thegreat spirit of agricultural improvement which distinguishes the present age, if it did not originate with this class of the society, has at least been greatly cherished and promoted by it. Nov. 1809.

From

Our author has peculiar merit in having devoted his sedulous attention to a subject as uninviting as any which occurs in the whole round of rural operations. The general management of sheep is not destitute of attraction; but that particular part which refers to their diseases, has nothing but its great utility to recommend it. this circumstance, as well as from its completely professional nature, we cannot, we fear, expect our readers to follow us thro' any analysis of the body of the work. We shall only observe, that it begins with a description of the anatomical structure of the sheep, which it appears had not hitherto attracted a due degree of attention. For this part Sir George acknowledges himself indebted to Mr James Wardrop, gentleman well known by several a The rest is by himself, and illustrates important professional publications.the mode both of curing and preventing diseases, the last of which is peculiarly important in a stock which is than any other. The whole appears to less immediately under the master's eye rest on a very extensive basis of experiment and observation.

Besides this treatise, however, a very large part of the volume is occupied by an account of the introduction of the Merino sheep into this country. As this is a point of general interest, and which from recent events has excited peculiar attention, we shall enter somewhat more at large into it.

It is now twenty years since his Majesty became possessed of an unmixed breed of Merino sheep.Some had indeed before been procured through Portugal, from the provinces of Spain bordering on that kingdom. These however had the defect (which was common to all former importations, both into this country, and other parts of Europe) of being a jumble of different breeds, or cavanas; whereas the perfection of the wool required that they should con-sist of one particular breed, preserved

in

the highest possible state of purity. His Majesty was therefore anxious to procure specimens from some flock which enjoyed a high reputation in Spain. It may not be improper to introduce here the account given by Sir Joseph Banks, of the manner in which this establishment is kept up in that country.

A considerable part of Estremadura, Leon, and the neighbouring provinces of Spain, is appropriated to the maintenance of the Merino flocks, called by the Spaniards, Trashumantes, as are also broad green roads, leading from one province to the other, and extensive resting-places, where the sheep are baited on the road. So careful is the police of the country to preserve them, during their journeys from all hazard of disturbance or interruption, that no person, not even a foot passenger, is suffered to travel upon these roads while the sheep are in motion, unless he belongs to the flocks.

The country on which the sheep are depastured, both in the southern and the northern parts, is set out into divisions, separated from each other by landmarks only, without any kind of fences: each of these is called a Dehesa, and is of a size capable of maintaining a flock of about a thousand sheep, a greater number, of course, in the south country, where the lambs are reared, and fewer in the north country, where the sheep arrive after the flock has been called.

Every proprietor must possess as many of these in each province as will maintain his flock. In the temperate season of winter and spring, the flocks remain in Estremadura, and there the ewes bring forth their lambs in December. As soon as the increasing heats of April and May have scorched up the grass, and rendered the pasturage scan. ty, they commence their march towards the mountains of Leon, and after having been shorn on the road, at vast estab lishments called Esquileos, erected for that purpose, pass the summer in the elevated country, which supplies them with abundance of rich grass; and they do not leave the mountains till the frost of September begin to damage the herbage.

A flock in the aggregate is called a

Cavana; this is divided into as many subdivisions as there are thousands of sheep belonging to it; each sheep, besides being sear-marked in the face with a hot iron when young, is branded after every shearing, with a broad pitch brand, generally of the first letter of the name of the proprietor, and each subdivision is distinguished from the rest, by the part of the sheep's body on which this mark is placed.

By the laws of the Mesta, each Cavana must be governed by an officer called Mayoral; for each subdivision of a thousand sheep, five shepherds and four dogs are appointed. Some of these inferior shepherds obtain the office of Rabadan, the duty of which is to give a general superintendance under the controul of the Mayoral, also to prescribe and administer medicines to the sick sheep. At the time of travelling, and when the ewes are yeaning, one or two extra shepherds are allowed for each thousand sheep.

The number of Merino sheep in Spain, is estimated by Burgoyne at 6,000,000; these of course must be attended by 30,000 shepherds, and 24,000 dogs at ordinary times, and they find occasional employment for 5 or 10,000 additional persons in the seasons of lambing, and of travelling.

In their journey, each subdivision is attended by its own shepherds and dogs, and kept separate as far as may be from all others. The duty of the dogs is to chase the wolves, who are always on the watch when the sheep are upon the road, and are more wily than our foxes; they are taught also, when a sick sheep lags behind unobserved by the shepherds, to stay with and defend it, till some one returns back in search of it. There are besides in each subdivision about six tame weathers, called Mansos; these wear bells, and are obedient to the voice of the shepherds, who frequently give them small pieces of bread; some of the shepherds lead, the Mansos are always near them, and this disposes the flock to follow.

Every sheep is well acquainted with the situation of the Dehesa to which its subdivision belongs, and will at the end of the journey go straight to it, without the guidance of the shepherds: here the flock grazes all the day under the eyes of the attendants; when the evening

comes

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comes on, the sheep are collected together, and they soon lie down to rest; the shepherds and their dogs then lie down on the ground round the flock, and sleep, as they term it, under the stars, or in huts that afford little shelter from inclement weather; and this is their custom all the year, except that each is allowed, in his turn, an absence of about a month, which he spends with his family; and it is remarkable, that the families of these shepherds reside entirely in Leon.

The shepherds who came with his Majesty's flock, were questioned on the subject of giving salt to their sheep; they declared that this is only done in the hottest season of the year, when the sheep are on the mountains; that in September it is left off; and that they dare not give salt to ewes forward with lamb, being of opinion that it causes a

bortion.

It is scarcely credible, though it appears on the best authority to be true, that under the operation of the laws of the Mesta, which confide the care of the sheep to the management of their shepherds, without admitting any interference on the part of the proprietor, no profit of the flock comes to the hands of the owner, except what is derived from the wool; the carcases of the culled sheep are consumed by the shepherds*, and it does not appear that any account is rendered by them to their employers, of the value of the skins, the tallow, &c.; the profit derived by a proprietor from a flock, is estimated on an average at about one shilling a head, and the produce of a capital vested in a flock is said to fluctuate betweeen five and ten per

cent.

The sheep are always low kept. It is the business of each Mayoral, to increase his flock to as large a number as the land allotted to it can possibly main. tain; when it has arrived at that pitch, all further increase is useless, as there is no sale for these sheep, unless some neighbouring flock has been reduced by mortality below its proper number; the most of the lambs are therefore every

year killed as soon as they are yeaned, and each of those preserved is made to suck two or three ewes: the shepherds say, that the wool of an ewe, that brings up her lamb without assistance, is reduced in its value.

At shearing time the shepherds, shearers, washers, and a multitude of unnecessary attendants, are fed upon the flesh of the culled sheep; and it seems that the consumption occasioned by this season of feasting, is sufficient to devour the whole of the sheep that are draughted from the flock. Mutton in Spain is not a favourite food; it is not in that country prepared for the palate as it is in this; we have our lamb-fairs, our hog-fairs, our shearling-fairs, our fairs for culls, and our markets for fat sheep, where the mutton, having passed through these different stages of preparation, each under the care of men, whose soil and whose skill is best suited to the part they have been taught by their interest to assign to themselves, is offered for sale; and if fat and good, it seldom fails to command a price by the pound, from 5 to 10 per cent dearer than that of beef. In Spain, they have no such sheepfairs calculated to sub-divide the education of each animal, by making it pass through many hands, as works of art do in a manufacturing concern, and they have not any fat sheep markets that at all resemble ours: the low state of grazing of Spain ought not therefore to be wondered at, nor the poverty of the Spanish farmers: they till a soil sufficiently productive by nature, but are robbed of the reward due to the occupier, by the want of an advantageous market for their produce, and the benefit of an extensive consumption : till the manufacturing and mercantile parts of the community become opulent enough to pay liberal prices, the agricultural part of it cannot grow rich by selling..

That the sole purpose of the journeys taken annually by these sheep, is to seek food in places where it can be found, and that these emigrations would not be undertaken, if, either in the northern or southern provinces, a sufficiency of good pasture could be obtainThe shepherds on discovering the drifted during the whole year, appears a of the questions put to them on this head, said, that in settling the wages of the shearers and washers, at the Esquileos, allow. ance is made for the mutton with which they are fed.

matter of certainty. That change of pasture has no effect upon their wool, is clear, from all the other experiments tried in other countries, and in Spain

also;

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also; for Burgoyne tells us, that there
are stationary flocks, both in Leon and
Estremadura, which produce wool quite

as fine as that of the Trashumantes.

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Through an application ne by
Lord Auckland, five rams and thirty-
five ewes were obtained, of the flock
known by the name of Negrette, con-
sidered one of the purest in Spain.-
His Majesty paid the most laudable at-
tention to preserve this breed in perfect.
purity, and prevent any foreign admix-
ture; and the result seems to have been,
that the wool remained as completely
good, as it was at the first impor-
tation. The dealers, at first, viewed
it with suspicion, merely, it would ap-
pear, from the circumstance of its be-
ing produced at home, and an appre-
hension that it might have some se-
cret defect, not manifest to the senses.
These prejudices however gradually
vanished before repeated evidence.-
It appears moreover, that by a succes-
sion of crossing, of Spanish with Bri-
tish sheep, wool may be produced
scarcely distinguishable from the best
Spanish wool. It is not, however, till
the fourth cross, that it arrives at this
perfection. The following is stated
to be the ratio in which the improve-

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seems to be the inferiority of the carcase; an inferiority which, though not universally admitted, seems yet dence. In this country, where the vaestablished by a great weight of evilue of the carcase is so much greater than that of the fleece, this is a very serious consideration, since the loss on the one would probably more than There seems reason however to think, counterbalance the gain on the other. that by a judicious blending of the to suit the English market, without two races, the carcase may be brought the fleece suffering. This circumconsiderably the extension of the new stance however, threatens to retard breed. We are afterwards presented with several letters addressed to the author by Sir James Montgomery and General Robertson, of Lude, which give an idea of the capacity of these sheep to stand our more northern climate. The result of their observations seems to have been favourable.

Sir James placed them, with some others, upon a range of hills from 70 to 1800 feet high. There they continued healthy, and one of them was whole flock. Gen. Robertson considers noted as the best Snow-breaker of the them as equally hardy, and sets still greater value upon them. Nay, such is the conviction of their hardiness, that Mr Mal. Laing has taken a flock of them to Orkney, where it is supposed they will answer extremely well; as in asituation so remote from markets, the fattening of the carcase is a very subordinate consideration. Here their inferiority in that respect, as well as the attachment of the breeders to former habits, seem likely, for a long time, to impede their general use.

A memorable era in the history of Merino sheep in this country has been formed by the present received by his Majesty from the Spanish government, in gratitude for the liberal assistance recently afforded them. The following particulars of this affair are given by Sir Joseph Banks:

The

The sheep lately presented to his Majesty are of the Cavana of Paular, one of the very finest in point of pile, and esteemed also above all others for the beauty of carcase. In both these opinions, Mr Lasteyrie, a French writer on sheep, who lived many years in Spain, and paid diligent attention to the Merino sheep, entirely agrees; he also tells us, that the Cavana of Negrete, from whence the sheep imported by his Majesty, in the year 1791, were selected, is not only one of the finest piles, but produces also the largest carcased sheep of all the Merinos. Mr Burgoyne agrees with him in asserting, that the piles of Paular, Negrete, and Escurial, have been withheld from exportation, and retained for the royal manufactory of Guadalaxara, ever since it was first

established.

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The Cavana of Paular consists of 36,000 sheep; it originally belonged to the rich Carthusian Monastery of that name, near Segovia; soon after the Prince of the Peace rose into power, he purchased the flock from the Monks, with the land belonging to it, both in Estremadura and in Leon, at a price e

qual to twenty French francs a head, 16s. 8d. English. All the sheep lately arrived are marked with a large M. the

mark of Don Manuel.

The number sent from Spain to the King was 2000, equal to two sub-divisions of the original Cavana: to make the present the more valuable, these were selected by the shepherds from eight sub-divisions, in order to choose young, well shaped, and fine woolled animals. This fact is evident, from the marks which are placed on eight different parts of the bodies of the sheep now at Kew.

The number embarked was 2,214; of these, 214 were presented by the Spaniards to some of his Majesty's Ministers, and 427 died on the journey, either at sea, or on their way from Portsmouth to Kew. His Majesty was graciously pleased to take upon himself the whole of the, loss, which reduced the royal flock to 1573; several more have since died. As the time of giving the ram in Spain is July, the ewes were full of lamb when they embarked, several of them cast their lambs when the weather was bad at sea, and are rendered so weak and infirm by abortion, that

it is much to be feared more will die, notwithstanding the great care taken of them by his Majesty's shepherds. A few have died of the rot. This disease must have been contracted by halting on some swampy district, in their journey from the mountains to the sea at Gijon, where they were embarked, as one sheep died rotten at Portsmouth; there is every reason however to hope, that the disease will not spread, as the land on which they are now kept has never been subject to its ravages, being of a very light and sandy texture. P.171.

This volume suffers somewhat from the want of tables of contents, and from several other defects of ment, arising probably from the auarrangethor's inexperience, but which we hope to see corrected in a subsequent

edition.

II. British Georgics. By James Grahame. 4to. 17. 11s. 6d.

MR Grahame's poetry has, for a

long time, been familiarly known to the public; nor is this the first time that we have had occasion to introduce it to their notice. Their opinion as to its general merits is likely to be pretty much fixed, We conceive, therefore, that we shall be rendering them a more acceptable service, as well as one better suited to the nature of our miscellany, by presenting them early with a brief analysis and occasional specimens of it, than by delaying till we can form an elaborate estimate of its comparative merits.

The title of Georgics sufficiently in timates the work to relate to the opeMr Grahame, rations of farming. however, though this has been a favourite study with him, does not make it his principal object to convey information with regard to the mysteries of that art. He aims to amuse, more than to instruct; to embellish, rather than to illustrate. He directs a particular attention to the situation and manners of the Scottish peasantry; to

those

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