Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/422

Rh 392 AGRICULTURE [LIVE STOCK these sheep are currently brought to weigh from 18 to 20 ft&amp;gt; per quarter at 1 4 months old, at which age they are now usually slaughtered. At this age their flesh is tender and juicy ; but when feeding is carried on till they are older and heavier, fat accumulates so unduly as to detract from the palatableness and market value of the mutton. Lincolns. These were at one time very large, ungainly animals, with an immense fleece of very long wool. By crossing them with the Leicesters the character of the breed has been entirely changed, and very greatly for the better. It is now, in fact, a sub-variety of the Leicester, with larger frame and heavier fleece than the pure breed. Their wool, however, retains its distinctive characteristics viz., great length of staple, an unctuous feeling, and, in particular, a brightness or lustre which adds largely to its value. Sheep of this kind are reared in immense numbers on the wolds and heaths of Lincolnshire, and are sold when about a year old in the wool, and in very forward condition, to the graziers of the fens and marshes, who ultimately bring them to very great weights. Cotswolds, sometimes called Glo sters or New Oxfords, are also large and long-woolled sheep, with good figure and portly gait. Great improvement has been effected in this breed during the last 30 years, in consequence of which they are rising rapidly in public estimation. The qualities for which they are prized are their hardi ness, docility, rapid growth, aptitude to fatten, and the great weight to which they attain. Their chief defect is that they yield mutton somewhat coarse in the grain and with an undue preponderance of fat. But in addition to their great merits as a pure breed they are especially valuable for the purpose of crossing with Downs and other short-woolled sheep. Of this we shall speak more particularly when we come to notice the Cross-breeds. Teeswaters. This breed, found formerly in the vale of the Tees, used to have the reputation of being one of the largest and heaviest of our native breeds. They had lighter fleeces than the old Lincolns, but greater aptitude to fatten. Like them, however, they have been so blended with Leicester blood as to have lost their former charac teristics. As now met with, they constitute simply a sub-variety of the latter breed. The Kents or Romney Marsh Sheep, are another distinct long- woolled breed which have much in common with the old Lincolns, although they never equalled them either in the weight or quality of their fleece. They too have been much modified by a large infusion of Leicester blood ; but as their distinctive qualities fit them well for a bleak and humid habitat, there is now an aversion to risk these by further crossing. As they now exist they are a great improvement upon the old breed of the Kentish marshes ; and this, in the first instance at least, was the result of crossing rather than selection. 2d. Down and Forest Breeds. The breeds peculiar to our chalky downs and other pastures of medium elevation next claim our notice. Southdowns. Not long after Robert Bakewell had begun, with admirable skill and perseverance, to bring to perfection his celebrated Leicesters, which, as we have seen, have either superseded or totally altered the character of all the heavy breeds of the country, another breeder, Mr John Ellman of Glynde, in Sussex, equal to Bakewell in judgment, perseverance, and zeal, and wholly devoid of his illiberal prejudice and narrow selfishness, addressed himself to the task of improving the native sheep of the downs, and succeeded in bringing them to as great perfection, with respect to early maturity and fattening power, as they are perhaps susceptible of. Like Bakewell, he early began the practice of letting out rams for hire. These were soon eagerly sought after, and the qualities of his improved flock being rapidly communicated to others, the whole race of down sheep has more or less become assimilated to their standard. Thess improved Southdowns have, in fact, been to all the old. forest and other fine-woolled breeds what the Leicesters have been to their congeners. Many of them have entirely disappeared, and others only survive in those modifications of the improved Southdown type which are to be found in particular localities. These down sheep possess certain well-marked features which distinguish them from all other breeds. They have a close-set fleece of fine wool, weighing, when the animals are well fed, about 4 Ib. ; their faces and legs are of a dusky brown colour, their neck slightly arched, their limbs short, their carcase broad and compact, their offal light, and their buttocks very thick and square behind. They are less impatient of folding, and suffer less from a pasture being thickly stocked with them than any other breed. It is in connection with this breed that the practice of folding as a means of manuring the soil is so largely carried out in the chalk districts of England. It is well ascertained that the injury done to a flock by this practice exceeds the benefit conferred on the crops. Now that portable manures are so abundant, it is to be hoped that this pernicious practice of using sheep as mere muck machines will be everywhere abandoned. These sheep are now usually classed as Sussex Downs and Hamp shire Downs, the former being the most refined type of the class, both as regards wool and carcase, and the latter, as compared with them, having a heavier fleece, stronger bone, and somewhat coarser and larger frame. The Shropshire sheep, while partaking of the general character istics of the Southdown, is so much heavier both dn fleece and carcase, and is altogether so much more robust an animal, that it now claims to be ranked as a separate breed. The qualities just referred to as distinguishing it from other downs seem, however, to be the result of selection rather than of crossing with other breeds, and thus the Shropshire sheep, while a pure down, is yet of so distinct a type from the high-bred &quot;Southdown,&quot; that it is well entitled to be recognised as a distinct and very valuable breed, as has been done by the Eoyal Society, which now assigns it a separate class at its annual meetings. Shropshire rams are eagerly sought after, and many breeders of eminence in that county have now their annual sales of these animals. These breeds are peculiarly adapted for all those parts of England where low grassy hills occur, interspersed with, or in proximity to, arable land. In such situations they are prolific, hardy, and easily fattened at an early age. It is to their peculiar adaptation for cross ing with the long-woolled breeds that they are indebted for their recent and rapid extension to other districts. Dorscts. This breed has from time immemorial been naturalised in the county of Dorset and adjacent parts. They are a white-faced, horned breed, with fine wool, weighing about 4 Ib per fleece. They are a hardy and docile race of sheep, of good size, and fair quality of mutton. But the property which distinguishes them from every other breed in Great Britain is the fecundity of the ewes, and their readiness to receive the male at an early season. They have even been known to yean twice in the same year. Being, in addition to this, excellent nurses, they have long been in use for rearing house lamb for the London market. For this purpose the rams are put to them early in June, so that the lambs are brought forth in October, and are ready for market by Christmas. But for this peculiarity, they would ere now have shared the fate of so many other native breeds, which have given place either to the Leicesters or Southdowns, according to the nature of the pastures. So long, however, as the rearing of early house lamb is found profitable, there is a sufficient inducement to preserve the Dorset breed in their purity, as they are unique in their property of early yeaning, 3d. Mountain Breeds. Cheviots. As we approach and cross the Scottish border we find a range of hills covered with coarser herbage than the chalky downs of the south, and with a climate considerably more rigorous. Here the Southdown sheep have been tried with but indifferent success. This, however, is not to be regretted, seeing that the native Cheviot breed rivals them in most of their good qualities, and possesses in addition a hardihood equal to the necessities of the climate. This breed, besides occupying the grassy hills of the border counties, is now found in great force in the north and west Highlands of Scot land. In the counties of Sutherland and Caithness, where they were introduced by the late Sir John Sinclair, they have thriven amazingly, and in the hands of some spirited breeders have attained to as great perfection as in their native district. During the last 30 years this breed has undergone very great improvement in size, figure, weight of fleece, and aptitude to fatten. In proof of this, it is enough to mention that Cheviot wether lambs are now in the border counties brought to market when weaned, and are transferred to the low country graziers, by whom they are sent fat to the butcher at sixteen months old, weighing then from 16 to 18 ft per quarter. This is particularly the case in Cumberland, where Cheviot lambs are preferred to all other breeds by the low-country farmers, by whom they are managed with great skill and success. It is not at all unusual with them to realise an increase of from 20s. to 25s. per head on the purchase price of these lambs, after a twelvemonth s keep. This fact is peculiarly interesting from the proof which it affords of a hitherto unsuspected capacity in Cheviots, and probably in other upland breeds, to attain to a profitable degree of fatness and weight of carcase at almost as early an age as the lowland breeds when the same attention and liberal feeding is bestowed upon them. There is no breed equally well adapted for elevated pastures, con sisting of the coarser grasses with a mixture of heath ; but when ever, from the nature of the soil or greater elevation, the heaths un mistakably predominate, a still hardier race is to be preferred, viz. The Blackfaccd or Heath Breed. They are accordingly found on the mountainous parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland ; over the whole of the Lammermuir range, the upper part of Lanarkshire, and generally over the Highlands of Scotland. Both male and female of this breed have horns, which in the former are very large and spirally twisted. The face and legs are black or specked with black, with an occasional tendency to this colour on the fleece ; but there is nothing of the brown or russet colour which distinguishes the down breeds. The choicest flocks of these sheep