whether iron or cotton, like a large sheep until
you reach Northumberland. A manufacturing
and seaport population must have quantity and
fat meat. But our colliers and iron men are
more dainty than their fathers were a quarter of a
century ago, when the maxim was, " A little fat
mutton makes a great many fat potatoes."

In Shropshire, on very doubtful grounds, but
with great vehemence, native breeders claim as
a pure breed, the Shropshire Downs: a very fine,
large, dark-faced sheep, with a round carcase
and a heavy fleece, sufficiently established to
reproduce itself, although Leicester men claim the
back and Down men the quality. Outsiders point
to the fact that the " peckly" face which once
distinguished the hill sheep of Shropshire has
become a uniform grey. On the other hand, the
Shropshire men declare that the modern South
Down owes its great size to a stolen cross with
the Shropshire, whether or not, there is no doubt
it is an excellent sheep.

Scotland and the borders of England are
supplied with two breeds of sheep of a very distinct
character, that are rarely, if ever, found south,
except in the butchers' shops: the Cheviot, a
white, tame, hornless sheep, and what is
commonly called the black-faced Highlander. The
latter is the dark, wild-faced fellow, with enormous
curled horns, which, from figuring so often
in the shape of Scotch mulls, adorned with
cairngorms set in silver thistles, is identified with
the Highlands almost as much as plaids and
bare legs. But this wild, shaggy, long-woolled
sheep, which feeds and thrives, in spite of mist
and snow, on the heath-covered tops of Highland
mountains, where every other kind of sheep
would starve, is really a native of the English
border hills, and only emigrated to Scotland
late in the last century, where it has been
carefully bred into the model shape without losing
hardiness. Thus bred, fed so cheaply, although
not so soon fit to kill as other breeds, it
furnishes throughout the winter many tons of legs,
loins, and saddles, which are forwarded by
steam-boat and rail to the southern, and
especially the London, markets—there, in a great
degree, superseding the wretched stuff called
Welsh mutton. This black fellow not only
thrives on mountain-tops, but fattens comfortably
and contentedly on roots, when
transplanted to the turnip farms of the Lowlands.

On a lower zone than the black-faced, but as
high up as grass will grow, feeds the hardy,
white-faced, hornless Cheviot: an admirable
mutton-producing sheep, more hardy than the
South Down, in fact, a true hill sheep. This is,
a colonist from England, which, however, owes
much to the careful selection and breeding
talents of Scotch sheep farmers. It is with the
Cheviot and the Black-faced, that hills and dales
which once only fed caterans and their cattle, have
been made productive and profitable.

Both these breeds are largely crossed, for one
cross with Leicesters and Cotswolds for mutton
and the Highlanders for lambs, with South
Downs and with Leicesters for wethers, the
Leicester cross being the most used. But prime
Leicesters and Downs have also been
acclimatised in Scotland.

In this sketch, all species of any importance
at the present day in numbers have
been mentioned, except Welsh, which are
so deficient in everything that should make
a profit, that it is the universal opinion of
mutton judges that the best thing for Wales—
next to introducing the Scotch system of
improving mountain pastures—would be, to supersede
the native long legged, bony, fatless breed,
by black-faced Highland Cheviots, improved
Exmoors, and the hardier tribes of Downs; for
to improve so small and wild a sheep would cost
more than they are worth. Talking of Welsh
sheep, the present Lord Llanover told an
agricultural meeting how, when his father
wanted to introduce turnips as winter food into
his native country, his tenants and neighbours
declared, with true Celtic fire, that a Welsh
sheep would disdain to look at a Saxon turnip.
Mr. Hall did not argue the point, but, in a snug
gorge of a sheep mountain, surrounded a few acres
with a stone wall topped with hurdles which no
sheep could leap or penetrate; this enclosure he
planted with turnips. When winter came, and
the sheep were half starved, he had the hurdles
taken down, one night. The sheep, of course,
leaped in, and when they had feasted full, Mr.
Hall sent his men to drive them into the parish
pound, as trespassers. The next day Llanover
House was besieged by the owners of the turnip-
eating sheep for their release. But he met them
with, " These can't be your sheep; you said they
would not touch a Saxon turnip!" The Welshmen
very humbly ate their leek, and the turnip-
eaters were given up.

For all practical purposes, the intelligent
foreigner, studying our sheep agriculture,
may confine his attention to the Leicester and
Lincoln tribes, the Cotswolds, the Downs,
perhaps the Shropshire Downs, the Cheviots, and
the improved Highland black-faced. From
these, crosses of more or less value, more or less
fixed types, have arisen, and are rapidly
increasing in number, in consequence of the
demand for weight in meat and wool. After
carefully examining the sheep cultivation from the
extreme south to north of the island, we have
come to the conclusion that, in all arable
districts there is a tendency to use sheep with
more muscle and less fat than the pure Leicester,
more size and wool than the pure Down. A
change has recently taken place in our
manufacturing demands which has made British
long wool more valuable than short wool. A
change in taste has also been established which
creates a demand for quality in most markets,
which can only be obtained by a dash of Mountain
or Down sheep.

It is curious to look back, less than one
hundred years, and observe that the gauge of animal
merit first publicly propounded by Bakewell
(who ruined himself with his experiments), has
since been applied to all our live stock, and
especially to sheep, with the effect of improving
every breed worth preserving; so that, although