Many mark each sheep as it is discharged from the barn by the shearer; but it consumes much less time to do it at a single job, after the shearing is completed; and it is necessary to take the latter course if a hot pigment is used. MAGGOTS. Rams with horns growing closely to their heads are very liable to have maggots generated under them, particularly if the skin on the surrounding parts becomes broken by fighting; and these, unless removed, soon destroy the animal. Boiled tar, or the marking substance first described, is both remedy and preventive. If it is put under the horns at the time of marking, no trouble will ever arise from this cause. Sometimes when a sheep scours in warm weather, and clotted dung adheres about the anus, maggots are generated under it, and the sheep perishes miserably. As a preventive, the dung should be removed; as a remedy, the dung and maggots should be removed--the latter by touching them with a little turpentine--and sulphur and grease afterward applied to the excoriated surface. Maggot-flies sometimes deposit their eggs on the backs of the long, open-woolled English sheep, and the maggots, during the few days before they assume the _pupa_ state, so tease and irritate the animal, that fever and death ensue. Tar and turpentine, or butter and sulphur, smeared over the parts, are admirable preventives. The Merino and Saxon are exempt from these attacks. SHORTENING THE HORNS. A convolution of the horn of a ram sometimes so presses in upon the side of the head or neck that it is necessary to shave or rasp it away on the under side, to prevent ultimately fatal effects. The point of the horn of both ram and ewe both frequently turn in so that they will grow into the flesh, and sometimes into the eye, unless shortened. The toe-nippers will often suffice on the thin extremity of a horn; if not, a fine saw must be used. The marking-time affords the best opportunity for attending to this operation. SELECTION AND DIVISION. The necessity of annually weeding the flock, by excluding all its members falling below a certain standard of quality, and the points which should be regarded in fixing that standard, have already been brought to notice in connection with the principles of breeding.