continual increase in sheep-fanning is one of the
most marked features of modern agriculture. You
see the effects of this increase in the Show-yard.
At Leeds, there were three hundred and sixty
pens of sheep; every pen of ewes contained five,
and yet there were scarcely any representatives
of animals which annually give tons of mutton
to the greatest markets; but there were
representatives of the breeds that have crossed and
mended Lincolns, and Cheviots, and black-faced
Highlanders. Bakewell's Leicesters stood first—-
not that any one cares to eat a Leicester sheep,
or that any one cares to keep a pure flock for
farm purposes, but because, like the Short-horn,
the Leicester goes everywhere—- from north to
south, from France to Germany, to America,
giving early maturity and broad backs, and valuable
wool to every variety of the ovine species.
It is a sure cross. Yorkshire is a stronghold
of the Leicester blood, but the famous prize-
winning breeders hail from Notts and Beds,
one from Staffordshire, one from Leicestershire,
and one from Devonshire. At one time, before
reduction of duties on wool, succeeded by total
repeal, opened our markets to the wool of
every climate in the world, there were
enthusiasts who dreamed of making England
independent of continental Merino wool by
cultivating the Southdown, and by infinite care
excellent wool they got. That dream is past;
but the Southdown, doubled in weight, rounded
in form, early ready for the butcher, can afford to
stand on its merits as mutton, while producing a
wool only second in value to the best long-wool,
and only second in value to the Leicester as an
improving cross. The Southdown has also the
merit peculiar to natural breeds, of being gladly
eaten by the men who breed it. The Southdown
thrives within a wide range of climates if the soil
be dry and the grass sweet, or in default of
natural grasses, on a full supply of roots. He
is found colonised in Scotland, esteemed and
thriving in the Northern States of the American
republic, where he endures the freezing of his
compact great-coat, and has been transplanted
with great success to France, and many other
continental states, happy upon any dry downs,
and useful wherever succulent mutton and early
lambs are required.

Wherever quantity is wanted the breeder
takes an infusion of Cotswold. It is a sheep
that does not bear transplanting so well as the
Leicester and the various tribes of Down, but
which is in great demand to produce the cross-
bred sheep that have become such favourites
with the butchers. The principal prizes of the
Royal Society were, until recently, confined to
the three breeds we have just named, which,
intermingled in various proportions according to
the pasture and the demand, produce sometimes
white-faced and long-fleeced, and inclining to
long wools, sometimes dark-faced and short-
coated, and inclining to Down; the problem
often attempted, never yet completely solved,
being to put a heavy fleece on meat of Down
quality.

It is one of the undeniable agricultural facts
of the day, that amongst sheep-feeders, as
contradistinguished from breeders, cross-bred sheep
have, in every root-growing county, annually
grown in favour. But this does not seem to
diminish the value of pure-bred flocks; on the
contrary, high-bred rams and ewes are in the
greatest request, and thus the sheep-pens are
not less frequented by anxious purchasers,
examining, comparing, and selecting, than the
cattle-stalls. Most districts have some local
curiosities in sheep-breeds that neither increase
nor diminish, but hold their own in certain
favoured spots. At Leeds there were a few
pens of the ancient Cumberland mountain
breed—the Lonk sheep, a near relation, we
should say, to those black-faced Highlanders,
whose heads are valued for mulls, to be mounted
in silver and set with cairngorms. There was
a ram—the Mountain King—bred at "Hould
Top," near Skipton, with vast spiral horns, a
black speckle-faced, as beautiful and picturesque
as any deer, as active as any goat.

The sheep section of Agricultural Shows has
helped to break down local prejudices, and to
make non-travelling farmers acquainted with
the class of animals best suited to improve and
supersede the ragged flocks of their ancestors.

Amongst the humbler classes, the
excursionists who flock in on the shilling days, or
the parties who come armed with wholesale
tickets from the heads of great manufacturing
firms, the pig section excites the warmest
attention. Pigs black and pigs white, pigs longer
than a North Devon ox and almost as heavy,
pigs small and delicate enough for a drawing-
room, pigs in the tenderest youth, and tusked
boars of the maturest age allowed to the
modern pig. Pigs from the north, south, east, and
west, from every condition of life, from cottagers,
from squires, from tenants, from farmers, from
parsons, many specimens of the purest breed and
highest price; from lords several, from ladies,
including at least one countess, three or four
pens, and, filially, pens of white pets from the
royal farmer of Windsor. But on their divers
merits it is needless to dwell, as they have been so
fully set out in the article Pork* some time back.

*Pork, All the Year Round, vol. ii. page 157.

Neither will we linger amidst the long
streets, where, in fragile substitutes for horse-
boxes, stand, each under the care of an anxious
groom, select examples of all the breeds or tribes
of horses in which England takes so much pride;
for what new can be said about the horse? The
prize horses attract the public, and perhaps the
public learn something from seeing the finest,
grandest, truest forms, but, examined closely, it
would seem that the horsy public seldom follows
lead of the prizes, and it is doubtful whether
the last twenty years have seen any improvement
in horses of any kind. Theoretically,
the most important classes are those for
agricultural horses; but, after more than twenty
years of competition, there are no such clear
divisions as those which distinguish the breeds
of sheep and cattle, or even of pigs.