Country Lite
BY IAN NIALL SHEPHERDING, which is among the oldest railings in the world, has always had its own sort of drama. Guarding the flock from the beast is an old Biblical picture with a modern counterpart in sheep- worrying dogs and stories of the devotion of shep- herds to snow-buried. sheep It isn't a branch of agriculture that can be mechanised to any extent. Something may have been done about shearing but most of the shepherd's work is done in the old way, on foot or, occasionally, from the back of a pony. The romance lies in the elemental things associated with the flockmaster and his charges as much as anything else. Lately, in my part of the world, there has been talk- of sheep-stealing becoming a serious menace. That ancient pastime is supposed to have had some romance about it too. Some of us admit to having had sheep-stealing ancestors who plied their trade even before transportation was at the discretion of the judge, who then knew only the rope and the tree. There is no such penalty. for sheep- stealing now and the romance remains in story. Modern sheep-stealers, like deer•-p.bactiers and salmon-snatchers, do their work from cars or suitable transport and their reward is not a place in legend but in the receiver's profit To combat this business the shepherds plan to register brands and •marks, 'a rather complicated affair by virtue of the fact that sheep arc often sold and resold, earmarked and branded several times over
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