M1 Janus
SHEPHERDINO
EMBRACING THE HISTORY, VARIETIES, REARING, FEEDING,
AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP;
With Treatises on Australian Sheep-Farming, the Spanish
and Saxon Merinos, &c.
SF
375
M63
BY M. M. MILBURN,
Author of "The Cow," and of various Agricultural
Prize Essays.
LONDON:
WM. S. ORR & CO.



LIBRARY
O STATE UNIVERSITY


PREFACE.
SHEEP may be classed among the most useful of domestic animals ;
and with our ever-increasing population their culture is becoming an
object of the first importance,—their wool being one of the great
staples of our national economy, and their flesh the chief food not
only of the humbler but of the more elevated classes of society.
With these objects in view, the writer has undertaken to embody
all the information which his long experience in rural affairs has
enabled him to collect respecting the breeding and rearing of sheep.
The knowledge he has derived, as a farmer and a grazier, is not of a
theoretical but of a practical character ; and he feels assured that his
agricultural brethren, on consulting these pages, will derive advantage
from the useful and diversified information they convey. Of the
MERINO breeds, and of AUSTRALIAN SHEEP FARMING, which are
daily increasing in importance, the author has treated rather diffusely;
and the information there detailed, he trusts, will be found both
useful and interesting.
A slight reference to the annexed Table of Contents will show
the variety of subjects, connected with the culture of Sheep, on
which the writer has treated.
400000





CONTENTS.
vii
CHAPTER VIII.
BREEDING AND REARING.–To Breed from the best kinds—The main
points of a RAM—The desirable qualities of the EwE—The Cross-
Breeding of Sheep—The most usual Crosses—The Leicester
with the Southdown; and the Cotswold with the Leicester-
The Leicester with the Black-face-The Cheviot and the Black-
face-Complications of Crossing-Management of Breeding Ewes
and Rams—Period of Gestation- Weaning of Lambs 87–100
CHAPTER IX.
MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.—Costs of Feeding-Qualities of each
kind of Food; and the Quantities required by different Breeds—
Mr. Lawes' Experiments-Fattening of Sheep at One Year Old
-Gardner's Turnip-cntter—Various Economical Modes of Feed-
ing-Board-Feeding—Stall-Feeding-Lord Bathurst's Sheep-
House—Comparative Economy of Feeding
101-114
.
CHAPTER X.
DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES.-Parturition, and Diseases subse-
quent to—Garget_Puerperal Fever—Castration—The Rot-
The Sheep-pox— The Sturdy—The Diarrhoea—The Foot-rot-
The Scab— The Blind
114-121
GENERAL INDEX
122


THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
99
WITHIN the whole range of Zoology, it may be confidently affirmed,
there is no animal more serviceable to man than the SHEEP. It is
the first domesticated animal mentioned in the early records of
history; and the progress of civilization is, in some measure, identi-
fied with its existence. Indeed, its history may be traced to the
remotest antiquity; for the care of it was first committed to the
younger son of the first created man. “ Abel was a keeper of sheep;"
and be “brought to the Lord the firstlings of his flock, and the fat
thereof."
According to the zoological classification of Cuvier, the sheep
belongs to the class Mammalia, on account of the young being
nourished with milk from the mamme, or teats, of its mother ;-to
the order Ruminantia, because of its four stomachs, in whick the organs
of digestion are disposed for chewing the cud ;—to the tribe Capride,
from its horns being placed on an osseous nucleus ;—and to the genus
Ovis (a sheep) with or without horns; the sheep being chiefly dis-
tinguished from the goat by his convex forehead, by his spiral horn
not projecting posteriorly, and, more than all, by the preponderance
of wool over the hair.
The progress of modern civilization has not rendered sheep less
important to the necessities and the enjoyments of man than they
were in the earliest periods of antiquity. As food they form one of
the first essentials of life, not only to the humbler classes, but to the
more elevated portions of society. Their wool, too, is one of the
most important articles of our social economy, which contributes
largely to our trading and manufacturing industry. They supply the


10
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
chief portion of that clothing which, in a country like England-s0
exposed to the inclemency and vicissitudes of the seasons—mainly
contributes to the preservation of health, and the general comforts of
existence. Their skins, also, are applied to a variety of uses. They
form covers for our books, and afford materials for the legal instru-
ments of nations, and the transfer of estates. Even their very entrails
are converted to useful purposes, and serve as strings for musical
instruments. Their bones, both by the chemist and the cutler, are
applied to objects of the greatest utility; while their fleeces by
being converted into skins and leather-call into active employment
vast multitudes of our labouring population. Nay, the very manure
of sheep, which tends to enrich the pasture lands, and even to
fertilize the barren downs, is a source of great profit and advantage
to the farmer ; and materially adds to the increased production of that
cereal food which forms the staff of life.
In the general characteristics of the sheep there are, moreover,
many qualities that enhance its value to mankind. In a highly
improved state of husbandry, it is almost the sheet-anchor of a
farmer's pursuits. In the alternating system of farming,—which
constitutes the keystone of British agriculture,—the sheep forms an
indispensable element. Without green crops, consolidation, and
kneading, the convertible system of husbandry would fall to nothing;
and an entire change would come over the whole of our best systems
of farming. In these times, the lighter portions of soil are the most
valuable, simply because they admit of the green crops being consumed
in the land by sheep, while the stronger soils—once the “good wheat
and bean lands”-are considered of inferior value; and the test of
that value is, the capability, or otherwise, of bearing the “ eating on"
of turnips by sheep.
It is thus evident that the sheep is a manurer of the land; and
there is a Swedish proverb that “the foot of the sheep is gold,” for it
transmutes to that metal all it touches. The wool constantly leaves
its greasy deposit on the soil where the animal lies down; the rains
wash out of it a combination of soda very nearly resembling soap;
while from the nostrils, when feeding, is evolved the carbonic acid
gas, the food of vegetation, so readily taken up by the alkalies in the
soil. The dung of the sheep is voided in thick and consolidated
droppings, so as to have a strong tendency to concentrate and preserve
its qualities. It does not so soon evaporate as the same materials in
that of the horse. The great quantity of urine also made by the
sheep, in proportion to the food consumed, is again a large source of


12
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
bounded their inclosures. It is thus that many an army, led by a
gallant officer, has committed as great a blunder; and yet it would be
the height of absurdity, on this account, to characterize the whole
race of mankind as being destitute of intelligence!
If cruelty renders the sheep obstinate, kind and friendly treatment
makes it ile and intelligent. once had a favourite sheep,
which had been in its days a pet lamb. It always produced three
lambs; and in every season, as soon as the throes of parturition were
upon it, invariably rushed through every open gate, and bleated
piteously till it gained admission into the kitchen. When it had been
delivered, it willingly joined the flock; but always made up to any of
the family, and rubbed against them for a handful of corn, which
would appear necessary to supply the demands on its lactiferous
system made by its progeny being more numerous than those which
belonged to the rest of the flock.
The writer of this little treatise, when leisure permitted him to
keep a flock of breeding ewes, had as docile and gentle a race of
animals as ever lived. They were perfectly obedient to his call.
For most of them he had names; and though they were not indivi-
dually called by them, nor able to answer, they were, as a flock,
altogether disposed instantly to answer to the general call “orch,”
and would run to meet him at the gate; or if permitted, and the
gates were opened, they would come galloping up gaily from as great
a distance as they could hear the sound of his voice. He well
remembers when once his ewes were grazing with those of a neigh-
bour, and had to be parted. The farmer was just in the act of sending
his dog to chase the whole flock into a corner, till they could be
singled out by their marks; when the writer requested him to keep
in his dog, and he would “call them out.”. The farmer gave an
incredulous smile; but the well-known "orch” soon set them running
off in the direction of the gate from which the sound proceeded. This
was a signal to the neighbour's flock to rush in the same direction,
from an impulse of fear,-imagining, doubtless, that the dog had
been seen.
This terror in a short time subsided. The writer's flock
hurried to the gate, and were let out, one by one, without the least
difficulty; while the others, kept off by fear and timidity, remained
in the pasture.
It is odd that the leader for many years of this docile flock was a
large-horned black-faced Scot, and a favourite, selected from a flock of
Scottish wethers, among which by some means it had strayed. She
was the tamest and the most docile of the whole flock !


INTRODUCTORY.
13
The secret of all this was, that they were regularly fed with a
handful of oats each for a fortnight before lambing-time; and this
alone gave them, in the absence of chasing dogs, a confidence in
and affection for their master.
In affection for their young few domesticated animals surpass the
sheep. The timorous ewe, when she has lambs, becomes the most
courageous of animals. She will keep a dog at bay, and menace him
by significant stamping of the foot. She attends her young with the
greatest affection; and we have heard instances of ewes so fond of
their lambs, that from sheer affection they have bit off their tails.
So strong indeed is their attachment, that if an ewe after lambing
does not regard her offspring, it is an indication well known to shep-
herds that she is likely to die. But if the lamb is weakly, and after a
day or two cannot follow, she becomes a careless mother, and often
resigns it to its fate. We once had a lamb thoroughly crippled from
the well-known and often fatal disease, the “crook.” It could not get
up, though otherwise healthy, and had to be suckled; but so careless
did the ewe become of the lamb, that nothing but force would induce
her to come near it. The lamb, however, lived, and ultimately walked ;
though more cost was expended in rearing it than it was worth.
Strong as are the instincts of the sheep this may be broken by
excessive domestication. Pet lambs brought up in the house seem not
to have the instinct of avoiding (poisonous herbs, and often die from
wanting the capability of discerning them. But it never loses the
sense of dependence on man, and will always show affection and
gratitude for the kindness shown in its early helplessness. We cannot
but deprecate the taste which seems to delight in such painful subjects
being hung upon the walls as engravings of the “sale of the pet
lamb.” It is a pity to make the fine feelings of children, and the
coldness of heart of the insensitive butcher taking away their compa-
nion and treasure for money, the familiar subject of daily observation.
It only hardens the heart.
In England there are no certain means of ascertaining the exact
number of sheep. In France, where some attention is paid to agri-
cultural statistics, there were said, in 1839, to be 31,864,247. Mr.
Porter describes the British sheep as numbering only 19,000,000 in
1800; but as increased in 1828 to 26,000,000 ; while with some
probability of accuracy, Colquhoun estimated them, in 1800, as high
as 42,000,000. M'Culloch is far below the mark in putting them
down in 1839 at 32,000,000. The most probable estimate is that of
the Frenchman, M. Ternieux, who stated them to be 55,000,000, and


14
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
valued the produce of the wool at £9,000,000 per annum. But
assuming that there are in Great Britain 60,000,000 sheep, and
valuing them at £1 10s. each, it will give the enormous sum of
£90,000,000; and if to this, the very moderate sum of £10,000,000
be added for their wool, it will give the gross value of the flocks of this
country at one hundred millions of money.
Mutton forms one of the great staple articles of food in this
country. It is a favourite diet both for the invalid and the epicure,
for the luxurious tables of the rich, and for the humble board of the
peasant.
Fat mutton had once a wider range of admirers than at present.
The fattest animals were the best. A dish of potatoes was placed in
the common oven, and over it the fat loin of a Leicester sheep. This
made a great mass of gravy. The master of the house dined off the
meat, while his family equally fared on the delicious and saturated
potatoes. But at the present time luxury has almost banished the fat
Leicester mutton from the tables of the manufacturing operative, and
is more confined to those engaged in the mining districts. The South-
down and the Highland Scot," the Cheviot and the half-bred (small in
joint and full of flavour, with less fat), seem to be the kind of sheep
which the spread of luxury and epicurianism demands in the manu-
facturing districts of the country; and therefore the present ten-
dencies of breeders must be somewhat checked, if not altogether
reversed.
Still, however, the flesh of the sheep has lost none of its popularity.
They may change the kind of animal; but as to any neglect of the
flesh altogether, it is out of the question. The Leicesters, the Cots-
wolds, and the Teeswaters, will, if this system continues, have to give
way at least partially to crosses with the mountain breed, and the
class of sheep in this country will cease to be so large, or possibly so
symmetrical; but taste must be consulted, and the breeders' predilec-
tions will have to give way to profit.
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF SHEEP, AND THE BREEDS OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
If the original breeds of cattle and horses be involved in obscurity,
there appears a far denser cloud hanging over the investigation of


ORIGIN OF SHEEP.
17
winter this covering assumes a sort of woolly character, rough in tex-
ture and somewhat curly, and about one inch and a half in length.
The ewes have smaller horns, though they are sometimes altogether
destitute of these appendages.
The ewes drop their lambs in March, and separate from the rams.
Their flesh is fat in summer, though they usually become lean in
winter. They are extremely timid, and usually herd in small flocks;
but, though untameable when grown up, the young are easily domes-
ticated. When pursued they will turn and look at the pursuer, as is
common in our sheep. Sometimes, in fighting, the males become
locked in each others horns; and then are either destroyed by being
dashed down the hills or precipieces, or become an easy prey to the
sportsman or hunter.
Applying our knowledge, as obtained inferentially from the most
ancient of records, we find incidental notices tending to fix the cha-
racter of the earliest sheep, of which history informs us, with the one
or the other of the class of animals above referred to, but especially
the latter. Abel had “firstlings of his flock.” Hence he possessed
domesticated animals. The lambs of the Argali would be a ready
means of procreating a flock; as they are even now easily domesti-
cated, and which would hardly be the case with the untameable
Musmon. Abel also offered fat, which is a secretion common to the
Argali, but of which the Musmon is said to be destitute.
The sheep of the Patriarchs, too, had horns; at any rate the rams
had that distinction. Nor could they be simply upright; as a ram,
it will be remembered, was “caught in a thicket by his horns,” when
the staying angel arrested the hand of Abraham. The curvature of
the horns being much more nearly complete in the Argali than the
Musmon, which are merely bent back, renders it the most likely of
the two to be entangled in a thicket.
That sheep were some of them brown in Jacob's day is quite cer-
tain, from their being set apart for his wages ; and this again agrees
with the colour of the Argali.
That the covering of the skin was something better than hair
even in early days is quite evident from Laban's shearing his sheep;
for it always indicates, at least, a woolly texture rather than a hairy
one, which requires the application of the shears.
Job, who lived, it is supposed, in early patriarchal times, evidently
made use of the wool of his sheep. His flock consisted, at one period,
of 7,000 sheep, and at another of double that number; and he thus
reminds his friends of his benevolence :-"If I have seen any perish


18
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; if his loins have
not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my
sheep.”
If we take the records of the highest antiquity, we shall find very
striking illustrations. The written records of Assyria have passed
away; but the historical relics of its greatness, brought to light by
modern research after lying hidden for centuries, throw a mass of
information on the practices, habits, and comforts of the people who
lived at vastly remote periods. The researches of Mr. Layard, at
Nineveh, have brought to light several pictorial representations of
the Assyrian sheep; for, though war rather than the peaceful arts
seems to have been the glory of the Ninevites, “six score thousand"
citizens brought for their “women and children," after the war,
abundant spoils of sheep; and the sketches give a very accurate idea
of the progress the Argali breed had made in supplying the wants of
man at this early period. The tail had lengthened and thickened ;
USA
Wave
ASSYRIAN SHEEP-FROM THE NINEVEH MARBLES.
the fat had begun to accumulate ; and the hair had become more
woolly. The horn, which was still nearly circular, had become
smaller, and the legs and head thicker. The ram had horns; the
ewe was hornless. The same species of domestication which had
diminished the large horns of the ram, had still further reduced the
diminutive horns of the ewe. There is a marked difference, however,
between the sheep and the goats of Layard's figures. The latter have
always the upright tapering horns, and are quite unmistakeably
different from the sheep.
Egypt, another great nation of antiquity, whose history is alto-
gether pictorial, was not celebrated for its sheep. The Egyptians
hated shepherds, on account of their historical associations; and the
country was unsuited, from the overflowings of the Nile and its rank
luxuriant vegetation, for the successful breeding of sheep. Hence
their hieroglyphics, their sculptures, and their paintings were nearly
all destitute of representations of the fleecy tribe. Of cattle, for


20
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
thousand centuries to effect the change. But it is another thing to
squeeze a somnolent Leicester out of an Argali; for to that, it will
be seen, we unhesitatingly give the merit of the original of our own
sheep of every kind. For how does the hair become wool? We
know the coverings of animals, as down, wool, and hair; but it is not
very easy to define the distinction, though there is a distinction so
great, that it is impossible almost to conceive how the one can be
transmuted to the other. Yet this is quite easy; it is what is con-
tinually occurring even in a very short period, and has been fre-
quently noticed both at home and abroad.
Dr. John Davy says, in the Philosophical Journal for April
1852,—“The sheep from Barbadoes, originally from an English
stock, affords a striking example of the change that may be effected
by climate, in a few generations, in the character of the hair of an
animal. In that island, instances are frequently to be seen of sheep
in which hair has so taken the place of wool (using the terms in their
usual acceptation), that, were it not for the form of the animal—and
that is not altogether free from change—it would be impossible to
suppose that they belonged to the same species as our English
sheep.” He carefully examined two specimens of hair-one from a
sheep two years old, the other from one a year old. Both were of
the same colour, a light reddish-brown, and the same length.
hair of the three-year-old,” he proceeds to say, was coarser than that
of the one-year-old; it consisted chiefly of harsh fibres, slightly tortuous,
each about the 180th of an inch in diameter, some cylindrical, others
more or less flattened, all looking towards a point at their distal
extremity. The hair of the one-year-old consisted of coarse and fine
fibres in about equal portions, the one about the 363rd of an inch in
diameter, the other the 1333rd of an inch; the former resembling the
hair of the older sheep, the latter having the appearance of wool,
both in its fineness and general aspect, whether seen with the naked
eye or under the microscope. The presence of a portion of wool
underneath the hair of the younger sheep accords, I may remark,
with the belief of my friend, that all the very young lambs of the
island have wool, which gradually passes into hair as they grow
older." This, he writes, he thinks is the fact. The doctor then
expatiates on the care “Divine Providence exerts in changing the
clothing of an animal to be suitable to the climate it inhabits.”
The tendency to lay on fat, it has been seen, is much more pre-
valent in the system of the Argali than the Musmon. This, again,
proves its relationship to the fat-producing sheep to be much more
“ The


FAT-TAILED SHEEP.
21
intimate. But though all classes of sheep show this disposition, more
or less, they vary as to the parts in which it is deposited.
Excluding at présent the British sheep from remark, they may be
divided into two classes—those which secrete and deposit the fat on
their rumps, and those which secrete and deposit it on their tails.
This peculiarity naturally divides the principal foreign breeds of
sheep. The first are the most remarkable
THE FAT-TAILED RACE OF SHEEP.
The Wallachian sheep is a remarkable animal, and altogether the
most beautiful, as a picture, of all the various breeds. They are
common in the whole of Southern Russia. The horns of the ram
are of a peculiarly tall and spiral form. The wool is of a hairy
character, but beautifully white. The tail, however, is the pecu-
liarity. Kohl, in his Russia, says, “it really carries its fat about in
its tail, which grows into a shape something similar to a pear,
swelling at both sides to an enormous size, and taperi to a point at
the extremity.” The Russian shepherds are a very dull and helpless
race of men, and more credit is due to the dogs and goats which
accompany the flocks for their care of the animals than to these serfs,
who are indolent and dull of comprehension. About four goats are
associated with a flock of every hundred sheep to face the Pontine
hurricanes, and to lead the sheep over ravines, and by the sides of
steppes, which otherwise neither the sheep nor their shepherds would
face. The sheep follow the courageous goats; and on once making the
effort, they have powers quite equal to the task. The shepherds are
strictly nomadic. They wander from pasture to pasture, accompanied
by their dogs and a wagon, which is their kitchen and bed. The sheep
are collected for the night into as narrow a compass as possible. The
dogs watch them, each sleeping on a mat; and with this the flock is
generally secure from the wolves, who prowl about in the hope of
finding some stray or sickly animal on some unguarded point. This
race of sheep has spread for a great distance over Hungary, Bohemia,
and Austria. The peasants still use the shaggy skins for coats,
which are an ample protection from the cold blasts of the northern
climate.
The tail of the Wallachian sheep is large and fat, also more from
its length than its breadth ; a characteristic in which it differs from
the African sheep, to which we shall hereafter allude.
The Persian Sheep is another fat-tailed variety, and is mixed up
with others which develop the fat in other parts of the body. The


22
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
eastern mode of keeping wandering flocks appears still to be, like
many other eastern customs, obstinately adhered to. Its wool is of a
long hairy grey, and extremely coarse. It also has horns, and these
disposed very like those of which we gave a specimen from the ruins
of Nineveh ; and it requires but little stretch of the imagination to
conceive how it is very possible that the slow unimproving Persian
may have gone on for unnumbered ages without change, without
crossing, -without one lineament of the outline of the sheep being
changed. The tail is a considerable accumulation of fat, tending to

ICC.
PERSIAN SHEEP.
the pendulous, and accumulate in a somewhat conical form. The
wool is of a much finer staple than the Wallachian, and is of two
kinds—a long hair-like, but thinly-dispersed wirery, and an under
one from which the finest class of wools are obtained ; and these are
said to be equal to Cashmere in their fineness of texture.
The bas-reliefs of Persepolis represent a long procession sculptured
on the wall of a staircase, where two rams, attended by shepherds,
form part of a migratory train of horses, asses, camels, and oxen.
Whether the horns were common to both the rams and the ewes is
not by any means certain; but if they were not, the Nimroud sculptures
certainly indicate two distinct breeds. The tails are long and pendent,
and thickening towards the end, they reach below the knee. It is odd
enough that the sacrificial bull figured on the obelisk found at Nim-
roud is also exhibited with a long thick fat tail, an appendage very


FAT-RUMPED SHEEP.
25
of our mutton. On this Dr. Anderson appropriately observes :~
"There is no meat on the body of our common breeds of European
sheep which in many of its distinguishing characteristics resembles
that of the tail of the broad-tailed sheep of the southern parts of
Africa or Asia; far less does any part of the flesh of our mutton bear
the smallest similitude to that of the hemispherical bumps on the
bullocks of the Steatopagu breed, which so much abounds in the
northern part of Asia. The bumps are called fat, because they
resemble that substance in colour and consistency more than the lean
of mutton, but it differs externally from the fat that is found on any
part of the body of our sheep."
The Persian Hornless sheep is another variety of fat-rumped sheep,
which is very different from all the kinds we have before described.
The fine head and neck are as destitute of wool as of horns; and the
ears, though pendulous, are short. The carcass is both deeper and
more cylindrical than those of any of the varieties hitherto named.
The breast is deep and prominent, and well rounded in front. The
body is deep, and not by any means defective behind the shoulders.
The leg is small and thin; but the rumps are a cushion, or rather a
double cushion of fat, so that the small tail is nearly lost, and more
resembles a head than a tail. The wool is short, but far from being
fine, and is of a milky whiteness. It will weigh 16 to 20 lbs. per
quarter, and is far from being a despicable kind of sheep.
There is incidental mention of the rump in the Mosaical sacrifice.
Moses took the fat and the rump and all the fat that was upon the
inwards. This Youatt quotes as indicative of the Jewish sheep being
of the fat-rumped variety. But this is by no means conclusive,
There were six parts of the ram to be burnt:-1st, the fat; 2nd, the
rump; 3rd, the fat of the inwards; 4th, the caul above the liver;
5th, the two kidneys and the fat that is upon them; and 6th, the right
shoulder (Exod. xxix. 22).
Now it appears to us that these directions rather oppose than
support the conclusion that the rump was covered with fat.
why did they not specify the fat covering the rump, in the same
manner as covering the kidneys ? and if the mention of the rump
along with other fat parts is to convey the idea that it was fat also, the
mention of the shoulder would convey the same impression, which
would not be at all accurate. The assumption that the fat was accu-
mulated on the rump and legs would operate in favour of its also
being equally deposited on the shoulder. We imagine that all that
was intended was, that all the best parts were to be sacrificed in the
If so,


28
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
wools; and this partly arises from the peculiarity of its climate, and
more possibly from the çare bestowed by its shepherds in the breeding,
management, and feeding of their flocks. That country no longer
manufactures cloth, nor does she supply even the whole of the wool,
for which she is so peculiarly favoured.
The Merino is altogether a remarkable sheep. Its form is neither
symmetrical in itself, nor indicative of being of any value as a mutton-
producing animal. It is destitute of muscle. The legs and shoulders
are thin, and the space behind the shoulders almost literally bare.
The head is a prominent part of the animal, while the thick spiral
horns, standing sideways, renders the animal at once unique as regards
the horn, and ill-shapen as regards the carcass, if we take English
perfection as the proper standard. The whole vital energies of the sheep
are concentrated in the production of the finest and most delicate quality
of wool.
The female is hornless, but produces wool as valuable,
though in less quantities, than the male. The wool is so closely set,
that it rather offends the English eye, and so abundant in yolk, that
the outer surface is absolutely stiffened, and thus all dirty gravel, sand,
and dust accumulate there, and form a sort of crust, which gives the
animal a very singular appearance. The fleece, usually weighs from
three to five pounds, though the two shear wethers will sometimes
have a fleece weighing from six to eight pounds. For this, and not
for its carcass, the animal is especially valuable.
The mode of treating the Merinos in Spain—the transhumantes, as
they are called, from their annual migrations from the high to the low
lands in winter, and vice versa—is very peculiar. They feed in
summer in the mountain ranges ; and being most suited to a dry
temperature, rather high than otherwise, they seem to thrive remark-
ably well on this pasture, which is by no means very fertile. On this
they feed from the end of April till about October, when another
weary march to the lowlands of Estremadura or Andalusia takes
place. The ewes are put to the ram before they start, when at least
six weeks travelling is before them, and they lamb at their destination
in winter. They possess none of those qualities which the English-
man deems valuable in his sheep. Their milk, for the same reason as
their flesh—the tendency to secrete wool—is both poor in quality and
small in quantity; and many lambs are often slaughtered to enable
the residue to obtain a sustenance. Though the lambs produced are
seldom more than one at a time, fifty per cent. are often killed, in
order that the milk of two mothers may be supplied to a single lamb.
Possibly the annual migrations in Spain would render the animal less


30
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
are allowed to depasture in the open air during the day-time, but are
certainly either clothed or kept up in sheds at night. This practice is
at least as old as Columella. The Tarentine sheep were covered with
skins, and called “soft” sheep, in reference, doubtless, to the effect
the covering produced on the wool. Columella insists on the care it
was necessary to bestow on these sheep as regarded food, warmth, and
cleanliness. He says they were principally brought up in the house.
In his days the same practice was common in Spain, and followed by
the Roman settlers in the north of Gaul.
The winter food of the Saxon Merinos consists of hay, or different
kinds of straw, supplied at various times of the day, and oats. The
rams are carefully fed with oats for fourteen days before being put to
the ewes; and eighty of the latter are allowed to one of the former.
Equal care is bestowed on the lambs. A shepherd watches the ewes,
which are all housed; and every lamb when dropped is removed with
its mother, as soon as it is suckled, into a separate pen. The best and
freshest food is given to the mother till the lamb is trained to eat.
No attempts are made to improve the flock. They are kept only
for the wool; and purity of breed is the great desideratum. If any
change takes place in the animal's characteristics, that change is sure
to be injurious to its wool-producing tendency, either in regard to its
quantity, or, what is even of more consequence, its quality.
As may be expected, the Saxon wool is the finest in the world;
and it is evident that this extra care is well remunerated by the in-
creased value of the material produced. They are unable, however,
to overcome two peculiarities of the Merino, unfavourable to its
history, where it is found. It is both liable to suffer, and even die,
during the period of parturition, and is very subject to the abortion
of its young. Care may do much ; but a larger per centage of the flock
of Merinos will suffer more from these causes than almost any other.
This is a drawback upon the profit of the shepherd, or owner; but it
is one for which the price of the wool will at any time compensate
him. The Saxon wool sells at a price far beyond that even of the
Spanish Merino ; for, large as is the sum obtained for the latter (vary.
ing from 38. to 48. per lb.), the Saxon Merino is worth from 4s. 6d. to
5s. 3d. per lb.
The care of the Saxon Merinos is, however, one of attention and
housing, rather than of food. To confine the English sheep on dry
straw, dependent on a grain of corn left by the thrasher, let it be
changed ever so often, or supplied ever so fresh, would only be to
subject the animal to starvation and death; but shelter, warmth, and


MERINOS INTRODUCED INTO ENGLAND.
31
dry atmosphere are of more consequence to the Merino and his wool
even than superior food.
Frequent attempts have been made to introduce the Merino into
England. The first was made by George the Third, who took a great
interest in the naturalisation of the Merino into England, to render her
as independent of foreign countries, as far as regarded the wools of
luxury, as she was with respect to the long wools of economy. But
the experiments altogether failed. The losses were so great as not to
be compensated by the extra value of the wool; while the absence of
mutton would be a defect to which the English flesh-eating people
would never submit. They preferred the fine and short wool of the
Down, though far inferior, because it was accompanied by a superior
class of mutton. The wool did not, however, degenerate; but the
low land pastures of England, with their rich luxuriant grasses and
succulent herbage, were too much for the Merino. These experi-
ments were made in 1791, from a very fine flock presented to His
Majesty. They seemed even to become less hardy than when they
were imported.
It is to be regretted that this trial was not made in some of the
wolds of Yorkshire or Lincolnshire, so as to give the animal that
peculiar dry and unsucculent pasturage which it seems to require.
Shed-feeding in winter, on inferior food, seems to be the kind of treat-
ment indicated by the habits of these sheep.
Another attempt was more recently made by the Marquis of
Breadalbane. Here he adopted the most careful and skilful manage-
ment. The sheep were housed, or shedded, at periods when other
breeds were exposed. They had excellent keeping, perhaps an error
arising from the endeavour to increase mutton ; but the three
shear wethers could not be made to exceed 64 lbs. each, except in very
‘rare cases, and these not more than 72 lbs., while less pampered breeds
would realize nearly double these amounts of weight, and at an earlier
period of their lives. Their constitutions appeared too weak for this
exposed and moist climate.
The late Lord Western devoted considerable time and attention to
the breeding of Merinos in this country. His chief efforts were
directed to crossing with the Leicester; but while the frame and
mutton of the animals seemed to improve, the wool in some degree
varied. He obtained it, however, of a beautiful texture, and of great
length. The writer saw some at least from twelve to fifteen inches
long, which possessed a texture almost as fine and delicate as silk,
It had, however, a peculiar knotted appearance.


32
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
An experienced and well-known agriculturist has favoured us
with the following remarks on the Merino breed, which are worthy
of the deepest consideration :-
Although the importance of this breed of sheep, at the first
glance, may not be fully recognized (for they are little known, and
since the deaths of Lord Western and Mrs. Dorien have only been
bred by Mr. Sturgeon of Grays), a little reflection will show that it
can hardly be overrated; for it is this which supplies onr colonists
at the Cape and Australia with the fresh blood which the nature of
their climate renders periodically necessary.
“In the latter colony, gold may now absorb the frenzied attention
of its population; but we must not forget that wool was the founda-
tion of its rapid growth and prosperity, nor overlook its importance
in. finding employment for our ships and our manufacturing artizans
by its successful cultivation.
“The Merino sheep is more distinguished for the quality of its
wool than for other excellences. It presents a very peculiar appear-
ance,—the face is beautifully soft and white; a little rise is per-
ceptible on the points of the shoulders, as also on the back of the
head; the knees incline slightly inwards, and the legs are covered
with wool to the feet. The rams are horned, and the ewes almost
invariably polled. The Merinos exhibit a remarkable tendency to
throw out horn, their feet growing so rapidly that it is necessary
to use the knife where they are not travelled much,--a provi-
sion of Nature seemingly to fit them for the migratory life their
ancestors led. They endure wet weather or low situations with
difficulty ; but in the hot weather no sheep appear in better con-
dition."
Mr. Sturgeon states that our climate seems to affect both the car-
cass and wool of imported sheep. He lately showed some tups which
were bred from sheep selected in Silesia by his son, from the flocks
of Prince Tichnowsky and Baron Bartenstein; and we noticed that
the wool was nearly double the length of that produced by either
the sire or the dam.
Nature appears to refuse to give the finest wool to the largest
carcass; but Mr. Sturgeon's exertions for the last thirty years seem
to have induced some relaxation in his favour; for on sheep that
would, if fatted, weigh 10 or 12 stones, we find a quality of wool
that can hardly be surpassed; and such sheep as (possessing the
roquisites of size and form, and the constitution peculiar to English-
bred animals) must always be in request by our colonists, and have


34
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
thus given by George Grey, Esq., some time Governor of Australia,
and late captain of the 83rd regiment:-
In Western Australia, a settler, commencing with a flock of 100
ewes would have in five years, with ordinary management-
.
.
.
Ewes
Maiden ewes
Wethers
Ewe lambs
Wether lambs
180
56
164
72
72
.
Total
544-value £800.
.
.
But in Southern Australia, a settler, commencing with the same
number, would have in five years
Ewes
540
Maiden ewes
168
Wethers
492
Ewe lambs
216
Wether lambs
216
.
.
.
.
Total
1632—value £2400.
.
This gives a balance in favour of Southern Australia of £1600.
To the class of jobbers called OVERLANDERS, the interior districts
of Australia are indebted for their flocks and their means of success.
A district soon becomes overstocked. A successful flock more than
doubles itself in two years, and thus will occupy double the share of
land; and at the end of eight years, sixteen times the space originally
occupied. A colony is formed, a tract of favourable land opens out,
and immediately the zeal and energy of these neck-or-nought men
seem to be developed. Mr. Grey thus graphically describes the
effects produced on a district by the Overlanders :-
“The first individual who opens å market which no Overlander
has visited, rides into the district an ill-clothed, way-worn traveller.
The residents do not at first cast a glance upon him, till presently
it is noised about that an overland party has arrived, that a route
from the stock districts has been formed, and that the incalculable
advantage of abundance of cattle at a cheap rate has been secured.
Landed property instantaneously rises, perhaps to double it had been a
few hours before; numbers of persons find themselves suddenly made


AUSTRALIAN SHEEP-FARMING.
35
rich without an exertion on their own part; and from all parts indi-
viduals flock to seek their benefactor.”
The Overlander sometimes invests £13,000 in stock, sets off over
hill and dale, crossing river and swamp, wood and rock, to find a
market; and sometimes he takes 8000 to 12,000 sheep to find a road
to a source of demand, over roads untrenched or untrodden, except
by the kangaroo and the “wraggle.”
The stock pastures or stations consist usually of several shepherds,
having each charge of 800 sheep. A wooden box is erected, and this
' is left in charge of a watcher, who cooks and provides the means of
comfort on the shepherd's return at night; and then takes his turn
of watcher of the flock, whilst the latter is sleeping. Sometimes two
flocks are situated at one station, so that one watcher answers for two
shepherds.
The life of a shepherd is an idle one, and somewhat disreputable.
It is the lowest grade of employment, though he gets £25 to £30
per annum and his keep, which consists chiefly of salt provisions.
These are the wages paid in ordinary times ; but in the present state
of things they are sometimes more than doubled or even trebled.
During the day the shepherd wanders with his dogs, and allows his
sheep to graze freely, but keeps them together, and drives them up
at sunset to the station, to give them again in charge of the watcher.
By one or the other they are daily counted in and out, and also by
the general overseer, who often superintends several stations, once or
twice a-week. The sheep are kept in inclosures of rude hurdles, and
surrounded by the Scotch colly dogs, which instantly give an alarm
if any of the wraggles or wild dogs approach, as they are the only
enemies of the sheep in this favoured country, which is free from the
ravages of wolves and ordinary wild beasts.
The two great “harvests” of the Australian sheep farmers are
the lambing season and the clip.
In the lambing season, the shepherd usually obtains a bonus for
every lamb he rears; and sometimes a prize is awarded to him who
rears the greatest number. The lambs seldom sustain injury from
anything but wet. If a rainy season ensues, many of them will die;
for the Meriro appears to suffer in lambing more than any other
breed, and shelter for such a number of animals is out of the
question.
The clipping season is, however, after all, the most important.
The wool makes the money. The first operation is the washing. It
is usually performed by damming up a small stream until it becomes


36
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
a pool, which is by far the best arrangement; but as they cannot
always be available, a still pool is sometimes selected. This soon
becomes foul and dirty, and hence the complaint of the bad colour of
much of the Australian wool. In other cases, the water is simply
poured upon the animals from the mouth of a can held above them,
or from a spout; and this is said to clean the wool very effectively,
but to be somewhat injurious in some cases to the animal.
The clipping is mostly done by travelling labourers, who are paid
by the piece. They have from three shillings to four shillings per
score, with ample provisions of the most liberal kind; and usually
from fifty to eighty sheep per day are easily clipped by expert
shearers. Sometimes the shearer has to purchase his food of the
sheep-master, and has a consideration in the price paid for the work.
Shearers, however, are now difficult to obtain.
The overseer's business is to stand in a building, and enter the
wool-shed to keep account, and particularly to see that the sheep are
shorn bare.
There are two sorts of wool, both short, but one part shorter than
the rest, called the bottom wool. This is easily run over, and when
neglected is a great deterioration of the value of the wool.
The packing, folding, &c., next occupy the farmer's attention ; and
a dray with eight or ten oxen is despatched, with the most trust-
worthy servant in the establishment, to take it to the neighbouring
town, perhaps Sidney-a most difficult and at times laborious
journey-sometimes from 250 to 350 miles. The wool is carried in a
wide vehicle, called the “bush dray," with low wheels and sides, and
a pole resembling the wagons of the Wolds of Yorkshire. Iron pegs
are placed on the sides of the cart to keep the packs steady. A
waterproof cover is thrown over the packs. Two men usually attend
it, and carry with them all the necessary provisions for the journey,
and encamp under it at night, after seeing the cattle obtain the best
pasturage at hand. Several sheep-masters often send their respective
teams in company, for the sake of mutual protection; and they travel
from twelve to fifteen miles per day. It is often two or three months
before the men and bullocks return; and then the bush-wain is loaded
with grocery and provisions.
The climate of Australia, though so fine, is hot; and incalculable
suffering often ensues from want of rain. To an European, the
scenes which sometimes occur are beyond conception. Mr. John
Gould, in speaking of the climate of Australia, thus describes the
occasional want of rain :-


AUSTRALIAN SHEEP-FARMING.
39
of servants for shepherds and sheep-shearers. That danger, however,
is now passing away. The many disappointed diggers are now quite
adequate to re-supply the drain which the first indications of the gold
fever produced, and there need be little fear of obtaining hands in
sufficient abundance.
We know an instance of a young gentleman, the son of a Scottish
Writer to the Signet, who has a large sheep-farm close to the diggings;
and he never, for the fifteen years he has been on that continent, was
able to make so much money. He finds in the disappointed diggers
(and in some cases these are reduced to a state of starvation), the
most facile supply of hands, and he can obtain them on very moderate
terms in any number he requires, either for sheep-tending or for
managing tillage land; while his near proximity to the vast mart
for his produce saves him the long carriage for what he sells dear
in the shape of mutton, milk, butter, cheese, and flour. It is odd
enough, that this young gentleman's first location was in the precise
spot where the very busiest and most active search is being made for
gold. His sheep-fold was once where the most successful and pro-
ductive holes are being excavated; and when he dug for his original
posts, wherewith to make the inclosure, fifteen years ago, he must
have been within a few inches of the gold! But if he had found it,
it is probable it would have been disregarded,-
,-50 foreign to his pur-
pose was the mining for the yellow metal, and so improbable would
have been the idea that it could exist there.
Much nearer was a friend and neighbour of the preceding adven-
turer of making the discovery ten years ago. In digging by the side
of a rivulet (now the scene of a horde of washers), he found mixed
with the soil a vast number of shining yellow scales and dust. He
brought home a basket-full, and showed it to his friends; when he
observed that it was a metal extremely like gold. This was the signal
for general laughter; but he still maintained his determination to
carry it to Sydney to be assayed when next his wool went to market.
To this he received such a volley of ridicule, with threats of his being
made a laughing-stock in the city, that he took the basket and
emptied it upon the dung-heap.
Gold was not then suspected, though there were individuals who
here and there anticipated the possibility of the present discoveries.
A friend of the writer's had a relative, a ship captain, who, while his
vessel was loading, took his gun inland and shot game. Amongst
others happened to be a kind of a duck. This, when opened, had two
pieces of yellow metal in its gizzard, -one a roundish piece like a


42
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
The throat and dewlap are pouched and pendulous, and convey the
idea of loose and flabby as well as coarse flesh. It is slow and
powerless in its efforts, as if it felt itself a degraded animal, different
alike from the agile Argali or the stately Highlander- from the mild
and patient Southdown, or the nimble and gay Merino.
The French sheep, in some respects, resembles the Merino, but is
deficient in many of its peculiar characteristics. Though some of the
varieties have doubtless traces of Merino blood, and are in some
respects managed like them, they are in other respects very dissimilar.
They have no horns. The neck and legs are covered with a coarse hairy
wool, and the wool of the rest of the body is not by any means fine,
nor gracefully curled, but rather straight, like hair. Their colour is
always white. These are the moutons de Picardie. Many of the French
varieties are migratory, like the Spanish Merinos. In May they
emigrate for the low countries in the south of France, particularly
for Languedoc. These migrate to the Alpine range, and are on that
account led by trained goats -kept for that purpose. The shepherds,
like the Spanish, have about one thousand in a flock, with one dog,
and a troop of asses to carry provisions and tents for the mountain
summer quarters. The goats have bells to their necks, which the
sheep soon learn to follow, and are completely at the command and
obey the directions of the shepherd.
These migrations are said to influence the quality of the wool.
But the fact is otherwise. For it is doubtless the climate to which
the improvement in the texture of the wool is attributable. Though
the sheep of southern France are hornless, they have fine wool, of a
close frizzled texture, and nearly resembling that of the Merino. The
M nos in France have not been altogether successful; for though
separate and individual experiments have been now and then favour-
able, they seem to be more suited to a warmer climate, and Spain
seems to be the especial European home of the Merinos.
The Iceland sheep are noticed because of the peculiarity of their
horns. They usually—the rams in particular-have three horns.
Two bending downwards, and nearly semi-circular, the other rising
out of the middle of the forehead, tending upwards, and slightly
forwards. They sometimes, however, have a perfect forest; and
instances are mentioned where as many as eight horns have grown
from the head of a single animal,--and this, while the cattle are
hornless, is a remarkable circumstance.
This kind of sheep is small, and covered with long hairy wool, but
with a bare tail. He is a hardy active animal, and feeds in droves,


46
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
they will be discussed under the head of each class of animals as they
pass in review. In the meantime, we shall give (chiefly from Mr.
M’Culloch) a tabular synopsis of the breeds of sheep in this country,
with an epitomized outline of their peculiarities, habits, &c.
Mutton-producing Sheep.
.
.
Weight of
fleece.
3
3}
3
23
.
.
Wool.
Long
Short
Short
Short
Short
Short
Mutton
per qr.
15
18
20
18
18
16
Age when
killed.
3}
2
3
2
3}
45
Black-faced Heath
Dorset
Wiltshire
Southdown
Norfolk .
Cheviot.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
3
.
.
.
The above are amongst those celebrated for either quantity or
quality of mutton alone, and unincumbered with the other desiderata,
the weight, value, or fineness of fleece. Such will be enumerated in
the third list.
Wool-producing Sheep.
Weight of Mutton
Age when
Wool. fleece.
per qr.
killed.
Teeswater.
Long
9
28
2
Romney Marsh
Long
8
22
2
Lincolnshire
Long 12
25
2
Ryeland
Short 2 14 33
Shropshire
Short
12 3}
Berkshire
Long 7
18 23
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
•
.
.
.
.
let
.
.
.
:
.
.
.
The above are rather selected as examples than dogmatically
laid down as specifically wool-producing; they all are used for
mutton-growing, but the wool is a very important item in their
value.
Sheep producing both Wool and Mutton.
Weight of Mutton Age when
Wool. fleece. per qr.
killed.
Leicesters
Long
22 1 to 2
Cotswold
Long
9
24
2
Dartmoor
Long
25
2
Exmoor
Long
16 2
Bamboroughshire Short-Long · 6 18
3
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
6
.


WOOL-PRODUCING BREEDS.
49
These show at once the transition. The Wallachian sheep has
hair more serrated than the Cheviot wool; the seal's hair has not
half the number; while that of the tiger falls off to mere scalcs,
which are totally lost in that of the rabbit.
On some parts of the sheep, however, the hair still predominates.
The head and face are covered with it, and so are the legs; and in
some breeds there seems to be a struggle even here.
The head of the Merino and the Wallachian sheep is covered with
wool, at least at the top, while the face rarely retains its wool; and
in some individuals of the Highland blackfaced breed, the backs of
the legs are decidedly woolly, at least the hind legs. It is further re-
markable that, in many breeds, while the wool is one colour the hair
is another. The hairy portions of the face and legs of the Southdown
are black or brown, while the wool is a milky white. The same
features show themselves in the black-faced Highland breeds ; as
if climate had changed the colour, as well as the texture of the
while improvement has banished hair altogether from the faces
of the purest new Leicesters, which have that part almost wholly
bare.
So much for the physical conformation of the covering. Its chemi-
cal constituents show it to be intimately connected with the state of
the soil. Vanquelin showed the yolk of wool to be essentially soap.
It had animal oil, carbonate of potash, some lime, and was, indeed,
exactly similar to the household soap, being composed of alkalies and
an oil. But the wool itself is a very remarkable combination. It
contains 98 per cent. of organic elements, and 2 per cent. of ash. The
former consists of:
Carbon
50-65
Hydrogen
7.03
Nitrogen.
17.71
Oxygen
24:61
Sulphur
hair;
.
100.00
The ash contains oxide of iron, sulphate of lime, phosphates of
limes and magnesia; so that the sulphur is a very important element
in the composition of wool. Some close statistical calculations have
been made, which show that in the United Kingdom as many as five
millions of pounds of sulphur are abstracted from the soil, which
annually receives the sheep's wool. It is evident, therefore, that in
order to have healthy animals, and a full produce of wool, there must


50
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
be in the soil a sufficient supply of sulphur, of nitrogen, of potash, and
of phosphorus, or the land will not enable the animal to secrete wool
in perfection.
We now proceed to enumerate the principal wool-producing races
of sheep. And first, the
Teeswater.—This is a remarkably long woolled and large breed of
sheep-indeed, almost gigantic, for it will sometimes attain the
enormous weight of 60 lbs. per quarter, or 240 lbs. weight. The
fleece is peculiarly long, but somewhat coarse, very open, and thinly
spread upon the back, and will weigh from 9 to 12 lbs. The Tees-
water is a very old breed of sheep, and has for a very long period
occupied the banks of the Tees. The same fertile valley, celebrated
for its short-horn cattle, had doubtless a breed of sheep peculiar to
itself, and they were no less indicative of its richness than its
favoured cattle. It is, by nearly all writers, classed amongst the Lin-
coln sheep, and said to be an importation from thence. This is a most
gratuitous assumption. The principality of Durham, celebrated for
its native wild cattle and pigs, had doubtless its own peculiar breed
of sheep and cattle, and the old Teeswater sheep had as much an
habitat* in those rich pastures as the wild cattle of Branspeth, or the
deer at Aukland Palace. The great peculiarity of the animal was
its slow growth, and, at the same time, its large size and bone,
its heavy, thin, and coarse wool. The length of the legs, in par-
ticular, gave it an imposing and somewhat ungainly appearance;
while its thick skin made it a slow feeder, in any but its native
pastures—the alluvial washings of many generations.
About twenty years ago the writer obtained two lambs, as a great
favour, from a flock of pure Teeswaters, which had escaped the awful
rot-year of 1829, by having access to a hay-stack, which preserved a
flock of about twenty ewes, when nearly the whole race perished.
The farmer forbad us having two of his best animals, and we had to
be content with one. He selected another, so close in the pelt, and
so unsymmetrical, that we decided in putting it off. The best was
well kept, and astonished both ourselves and our visitors by its
amazing size, and the great weight and quantity of its wool; but,
just before shearing, it died a victim of wool and mutton. As it was
skinned and not shorn, we had no mode of weighing the fleece, but it
could not be lighter than 12 lbs. The load of fat, added to the
• Thoresby says, in 1703, “We passed the river Tees in a fruitful country
which produces very large sheep."


THE TEESWATER BREED.
51
envelope of heavy wool, seemed to have suffocated the animal. It
was, however, exceedingly well kept.
The pure Teeswaters are now very scarce. They have all, more
or less, been improved by crosses with the Leicesters. A more beau-
tiful cross we never saw. The Leicester shortens the leg, and reduces
the bone and coarse parts; but it must be confessed that it also
shortens the wool. Still it so far keeps up the character of an open
fleece, that it is very excellent in a point where the Leicester is some-
what deficient. The cross is always the substitution of a Leicester
instead of a Teeswater ram, to a Teeswater flock of ewes. The finest
animal shown at the Liverpool meeting of the Royal Agricultural
Society was one of these crosses, and it was excluded because it was
not a pure Leicester. So manifest was this said mistake, that “long-
woolled” was a term soon after substituted for Leicester, so as to
admit sheep of this description to compete.
As this class has taken the place of the Teeswater, it may not be
amiss to give a description from memory of the ram, as he appeared
when shown at Liverpool. He was large, but not coarse, with pure
white, long and curly, but very open wool; the head thickly set, with
short whitish hair; the ears thin and small, and destitute of wool;
the back extremely broad, and though wider across in the middle, was
also a considerable width over the shoulders and rump; it was all
filled up with firm solid but elastic flesh and fat. The legs were
short, but with sufficient bone to bear the great weight of the animal,
and long enough to display his figure. With little less quality than
the sheep of the Duke of Rutland (who, if we remember right,
carried off the prize), he would certainly have made three of him, and
weighed at least 40 lbs. per quarter. The largeness of his size did
not at all prevent his being fine and delicate in his useless parts. The
neck was broad, but small in circumference, and without pendulous
matter; the breast very deep, but proportionately wide, so as to make
bim walk with his fore legs a great distance apart. His legs were
more fleshy, and had more mutton than those of the Leicester, which
have a stronger tendency to accumulate it on the saddles or loins.
The eye was gentle, mild, and placid ; and he seemed as perfect a
specimen of a wool-bearing sheep as we could well imagine.
The Teeswater sheep answer best in small flocks, and dispersed
over pastures with other stock, rather than being laid on very thick
upon the ground. The ewes are remarkably prolific, and usually
produce two and often three lambs at a birth. They are good
mothers and excellent milkers; and though almost incapable of



52
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
being made fat at one year old, they will weigh twenty-five to thirty
pounds per quarter at the shear without difficulty.* The contest
respecting large and small sheep on good land, and the most politic
course for breeding and fatting, is by no means settled. We once
heard a controversy terminate as follows between a Leicester and a
Teeswater breeder:_“I like something to fill the eye,” says the
latter; “And I to fill the pocket,” said the former. Possibly both
were right.
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51
A
HAN.
ROMNEY MARSH OR KENTISH SHEEP.
The Romney Marsh or Kentish sheep is not, in its external
characteristics, unlike the Teeswater. Like them it inhabits a
locality to which they are peculiarly suited, and where it has pre-
* Mr. Tuke, in his Survey of the North Riding of Yorkshire, speaks of the
Teeswater as being a part of the cross of nearly the whole North Riding of
Yorkshire in his day, and gives some averaging instances of size and weight.
He mentions Mr. Powley, of Thornton, steward, having a wether sheep, rising
three years old, which weighed, when killed, 16 stones 11 lbs., or 59 lbs. per
quarter nearly. It cut 6 inches of fat at the rib, and 44 inches on the rump.


54
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
keep a considerable amount of the native and hardy blood, suited to
the climate as well as suited to the soil.
The infusion of Leicester blood effected a change, possibly for the
better, on the old Romney Marsh sheep. It made a finer animal,
reduced the quantity but not the quality of the wool, deepened the
chest and increased its width, rounded the rib and lessened the bone
generally, drew up the belly, and destroyed the tuft of hair on the
top of the head; so that it made the sheep altogether a better feeding
animal, without destroying its suitability to the soil and climate
which it had inhabited for years.
With its other improvements, the cross had also the effect of
reducing the period of bringing the animals to market. They were
usually three years old before they were sold to the butcher for
killing. They are now prime for the London market at two; and as
this enables the feeder to turn over one-third more capital in sheep
fattening, it is a great advantage, though he has possibly somewhat
injured the hardihood of the animal; and it now requires a greater
amount of care and skill for the bringing up of the lambs.
Nor has the wool been so far injured as to prevent the breed
from being classed among those celebrated for this commodity. The
Leicester may have shortened a little, and made the fleece closer
set on the body; but it has neither destroyed its fine texture, nor
prevented it from standing high in the estimation of the manu-
facturer.
The Lincolnshire sheep is one very much resembling, in many of
its characteristics, the races we have just described; and it is very
probable that these have had one common origin. To Teesdale we
give the decided palm of priority; and it is the easiest thing ima-
ginable to conceive how the constant incursions of the Picts and
Scots into Durham and North Yorkshire induced, from time to time,
the shepherds, or sheepowners more properly speaking, to drive their
sheep southward, to avoid the destructive and marauding propensities
of these semi-barbarous warfarers. The country could not be laid
waste, time after time, without some such effect being produced; and
the fact of all this class of sheep being on the eastern side of the
island, is somewhat corroborative of what we have hinted.
These sheep stand on high and bony legs. They have smaller
faces than the Romney Marsh sheep, and are altogether lighter in
flesh. The carcass is large and coarse; the length from the head to
the tail considerable, measuring in some cases four feet six or seven


THE LINCOLNSHIRE BREED.
55
the rumps.
inches. This great length sometimes produces a hollowness of the
back. The ribs are fattish, and not covered very thickly with
flesh. The belly is deep, like the Romney Marsh sheep, and the
shoulders so forward as almost to hide the breast. The neck is thick
and large, from which hangs a deep and flabby dewlap. The skin is
thick, and the flesh often grained. The hind quarters, like those of
the Romneys, are full and fat, the tendency being to lay on fat at
The legs are fleshy and deep. The whole animal
appears to be of a somewhat unshapely form, taking the standard of
connoisseur taste as a criterion ; but when the valued wool covers
the animal, the whole of his imperfections are hid. He is one
living square of wool, ranging from fifteen to eighteen inches long;
and more wool is clipped from the Lincolnshire sheep than from any
English sheep whatever. The fleece varies from the enormous weight
of 12 to 14 lbs., which, when it sells for 15d. or 18d. per pound, is
equal to the value of the whole carcass of some of the smaller
breeds of sheep. Nor are they far behind in mutton. The wether
will weigh from 30 to 35 lbs. per quarter, sinking the offal, or a nett
weight of mutton per sheep of 140 lbs.
To the fens of Lincolnshire these sheep are peculiarly adapted,
and, apart from their coarseness, are a most valuable breed.
The Old Lincoln sheep were what any other breed (useful in its
day) was, before the magic touch of improvement visited it. They
gained mutton slowly, but the wool made them valuable to the fen
farmer. They required, however, good pasturage. The only part of
Lincolnshire, where the old breed remains in its unmixed purity, is
the rich eastern marshes, aud the low south-eastern portions of the
county.
Here, as in the case of the Tees Valley and the Romney Marsh,
the Leicester has slipped in. They reduce the size a little; they
diminish the length, and revive the accumulation of fat inside, which
was a peculiarity of the old Lincoln, and deposit on the outside and
back of the animals. Into the lowland flocks a small dash of
Leicester is permitted, but in the Wolds flocks there exists fully
three-fourths Leicester to one-fourth Lincoln; and perhaps the Lin-
coln specimens are not the old unimproved breed to begin with.
The effect on the wool, as to quantity, certainly depends on the
degree of Leicester blood infused. The lowland sheep, when it pre-
vails in a smaller degree, have a large massy frame of flesh, covered
and grained with fat. They are compact and light of offal, and are
kindly feeders, though they require more food than when a larger


56
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
proportion of Leicester blood prevails, and cannot either be put on
land so inferior, nor on any land in the same average quantity; but
for wool they exceed most of the breeds known. Remarkable in-
stances of this are recorded. A wether killed at Grantham, one of
an equal lot of twenty-seven, clipped 17 lbs. of wool, and weighed
almost 308 lbs.
The sheep are always sold at two shear, and the united clip—the
one made as a shearling and the other at two years old—will often
average 20 to 25 lbs. When fatted to the utmost extent, remarkable
specimens are on record. A wether killed at Holbeach Marsh weighed
300 lbs.; an ewe from Long Sutton, at the Smithfield Club Show,
when killed, weighed 262 lbs. in 1846. These instances are given to
show the capabilities of these large-framed sheep-not, perhaps,
adapted to all localities, but remarkably productive of wool and
mutton. Take, for instance, a choice specimen-assume him to be
two shear, and his whole produce will be little short of a small cow.
£ s. d.
Two fleeces of wool, 24 lbs., at 1s. 3d. 1 10 0
Carcass, say 250 lbs., at 5d.
6 4 2
Total
£6 14 2
When greater prices prevailed, of course the produce of the animal
was more; but enough has been said to show that the Lincolnshire
sheep, when the least removed from its original stock, is an animal
wonderfully remunerative in the shape of wool and mutton.
The Ryeland Sheep.-This sheep is another old, if not original,
breed, being resident and produced in the light or rye-growing dis-
tricts of Herefordshire. As the Lincoln are celebrated for quantity,
these are for the quality of their wool. It is white, and covers the
sides of the face; and over the top of the head is a bushy tufty
patch. The wool they produce is in great favour for carding-
superior, indeed, for this purpose, to all other kinds of British wool,
and almost equal to Australian, if not entirely so. Hence they were
eminently a wool-producing animal; and as the desire for mutton
began to extend in the country, and improved turnips cultivated in
the light lands enabled them to produce more of that material, the
breeding of the true Ryeland sheep has somewhat declined. They
appear to have had the same characteristics, as to wool, so far back as
1343, when the price is given as 12 marks, or 160 shillings per sack.
Formerly these sheep were protected with almost Saxon care. They


58
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
size of the sheep have been made by crosses of the Leicester, Cots-
wolds, and Southdowns; the contrast, however, was too great. The
results were destruction of all the peculiarly desirable properties of
the Ryeland, as well as the obliteration of several of the others; and
the breed has been rapidly abandoned for more profitable mutton-
producing kinds of sheep.
The Shropshire sheep may, for all practical purposes, be con-
sidered as a climatic variety of the Ryeland. At the early period
before referred to (1343), it is clear that this breed was very valuable
for its wool. The produce of the Shropshire sheep exceeded even the
Ryeland by two marks per sack, making the large sum of £9 6s. 8d.
per sack, the dearest of all the English wools mentioned by Anderson.
This breed inhabited a rye-producing district, probably the Morfe-
down, consisting of about 4000 acres of common land near the
Severn, which yielded a short and stunted, but fine grass. The
colour, however, shows them to be in some degree distinct from the
Ryelands, though possibly of one common origin, and a part of the
stock alluded to by Herbert. The hair of the face and legs is
speckled and grey, and they have a sort of short undeveloped horns.
The fleece is about the same weight as that of the Ryeland—2 lbs.;
but the staple is particularly fine. They are seldom kept till more
than five years old; and the ewes will not weigh more, when fat,
than 9 or 10 lbs. per quarter. The wethers will weigh 13 or 14 lbs.
Modern tastes and habits will not allow, however, of sheep being
kept for 2 lbs. of wool and 40 lbs. of mutton; and hence the changed
demands and wants of the population are fast banishing all these
original breeds of animals,-breeds of a class comprehending the
promotion of both wool and mutton supplying their places.
The Wiltshire sheep is the largest of the fine wool-bearing
animals ; and the wethers will weigh, when fat, 70 to 100 lbs.;
though the latter is, perhaps, an extreme weight. The wool is not
very short, but extremely fine, and weighs 21 lbs. per fleece. The
sheep is horned, the horns rising close together, and bending back-
wards and downwards, close to the head of the animal. The hair on
their faces and legs is perfectly white. They have large bones, and
are slow feeders. They are very voracious, though they make little
tlesh in proportion to the food consumed. Their bellies are destitute
of wool; the head long; the nose somewhat arched ; and the nostrils
open, wide, and prominent. The fore quarters, especially the breast


60
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
flavour, ond chooses the Highland black face, the Southdown, or the
Welsh mountain breeds ; so much so, that the demand for these
smaller animals is so great, as to make the smaller weight of more
absolute value than the larger. In the larger also, the tendency seems
to be to grow both wool and mutton in a considerable degree. Hence
we have selected, as the test of classification, the market value of the
mutton, in defining the mutton-producing breeds.
We have seen how native breeds deposit their fat as well as their
flesh; for both are necessary to the English notion of mutton. The
race which deposits it on the hind quarters is very numerous—some
depositing it on the rumps, others on the tails. The characteristic of
the native English sheep appears to be the depositing of it on the
flanks, as will be seen from the description of the wool-producing
breeds mentioned in the last chapter. The progress of the improve-
ment, however, has more than developed the fat either equally all
over the body, as in the case of the Leicesters, or divided it between
the layers of the muscles, as in the various breeds of mountain sheep,
and the Southdown. The reasons appear to arise from the physiolo-
gical points and natural history of the animals, which are alone ade-
quate to account for these peculiarities. The race of sheep, of which
the Leicester is a type, are a set of still animals. They are luxurious
and sluggish. The deposit of fat is not worked in, as it were, by the
action of the muscles, but accumulates under a skin peculiarly soft,
yielding, and elastic. The mountain breeds (for into such we shall
presently resolve all the favourite mutton-producing breeds of sheep),
lead an active, vigorous life; and thus the fat is deposited between
the muscles, in order to lubricate them for the performance of their
duties. Hence we have marbled mutton, the fat and lean being
regularly dispersed; and the gravy is kept in the grain of the meat
when cooked ; while in the other case the fat fries out, and only
bastes the joints while cooking, thus affording more dripping for the
cook than gravy for the master,
The process of mutton-making is thoroughly English. The internal
formation of fat is the first process in all the English sheep. A network
of fat is first formed, which envelopes the intestines, and another mass
accumulates on the kidneys. Thus it begins to be deposited on the
rump; and the first symptoms are the sides of the rump rising, so that
the backbone cannot be felt. They begin to be cloven. This progresses
gradually on the back, until the backbone is lost; and, instead of the
protuberant boucs, there is a crevice along the line of the back to the
shoulder, or possibly to the juncture of the neck. Then it begins to


BLACK-FACED OR HEATH SHEEP.
61
be accumulated on the sides, and proceeds towards the flanks, and
forms on the breast, shoulders, and brisket, thus showing how gradu-
ally the whole tendencies of the sheep, in all climes, are brought out
to make a fat-mutton English, or rather British, sheep. When all this
is accomplished the sheep is fat, or prime.
The Blackfaced or Heath Sheep takes the lead in the epicure's list
of fine mutton-producing sheep. A four-year old Scotch wether, as
they are usually termed (though a similar breed inhabits the whole of
the range of mountains known as the “Backbone of England,” as
well as the Scottish mountains), if killed fat, and the mutton kept from
two to five weeks in winter, until it begins to be covered with a green
mould, is one of the finest dishes an epicure can desire.
The mutton is very small in the grain, dark in its colour, not very
high flavoured, and extremely tender. It may be considered a native
of the Highlands of Scotland, and is a wild, active, and rambling
sheep. Material improvements have late been made, not by cross-
ing, but by selecting the best, and breeding from these exclusively,
until the once goat-like, shaggy, ungainly animal is more symmetrical,
tamer in disposition, and finer, though equally long, in the wool.
The usual weight is fourteen to eighteen pounds per quarter ; but Mr.
Stephens mentions the case of an animal of this breed, shorn at the
Perth meeting of the Highland Society, which weighed forty pounds
per quarter-an enormous weight for any sheep, but especially so for
a small wild mountain breed. It may be supposed, however, that this
was quite an exception. The Gillespies of Lanarkshire were the
great improvers of the breed, and could show very beautiful specimens.
The Messrs. Plummer of Laidlaw slaughtered in Edinburgh, in 1850,
about two hundred of these improved animals; and they averaged
twenty-five pounds per quarter, some reaching thirty pounds.
The peculiarity of this sheep is its hardiness. It will live on food
the most unlikely; and for growing it is usually left to shift for itself
amongst the heather and furze; and when unmolested he picks up a
subsistence unknown to a finer race. Thus he grows up at very little
expense, either to his master or any one else, until he is taken to a
better pasture, or to turnips, for the sake of being fatted.
The hair on the face and neck of these sheep is usually black,
though sometimes approaching to grey, and a little before shearing
time somewhat brown. The head is fine, and slightly Roman, while
elegant and graceful horns grow from each side, usually bending back-
wards and downwards. The specimens on the heads of some four-year


62
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
old wethers are really beautiful. The heads are broad, and the backs
straight and broad; the chests deep, and the legs straight and fleshy.
The wool is long and pendulous, and convoluted in the most graceful
ringlets. The eyes are bright, full, and expressive of life. The car-
cass is full and round-barrelled, having well arched ribs. The lines
down the hams and the breast are straight and perpendicular. The
neck is fine and clean.
The lean Highland sheep are usually purchased at Falkirk trysts,
where teeming myriads of animals clothe the moor,---a sight calculated
to bewilder the observer. As many as 80,000, and even 90,000, are
sometimes shown at the Oetober tryst. Twenty thousand is a common
number at the other trysts. About half this number are wethers of
the shear; the remainder are two-year olds, for further picking on the
moors, and for store or for feeding, and a few rams.
The year-old wethers are either purchased there, and put to turnips
to fatten, and sold off, or killed in March or April, or they are run on
in winter in any low pasture with rough grass, and fattened in the
summer of the following year on grass. During the winter these will
live, and even improve, on grass of a very inferior kind; such,
indeed, as every other animal will refuse ; and if put somewhat
thinly on the ground, will manage to get through the winter. Many
persons imagine, that four or even five years are absolutely
necessary to the full mutton-development of the black-faced sheep.
This is not the case. Heather-fed sheep, fed in the second winter
after they are lambed, are, when rapidly fatted, as prime and ripe as
they can be at any subsequent period. Mr. William Bogue had a
two-year old wether sheep slaughtered, which weighed twenty-seven
pounds per quarter, and this, Mr. Dickson shows, is by no means an
improbable or uncommon weight, for he gives an instance of several
live animals which weigh from 117 lbs. to 187 lbs.; and these would
average twenty-seven lbs. per quarter when killed. Mr. Bogue states
that for fattening they exceed the Southdowns which he had also in his
possession; but it should be borne in mind that this was at Skateran,
a situation too cold and bleak possibly for the Southdowns. There is
great difference, however, it must be admitted, between those heath-
fed black-faces and those which have been bred up on more genial
soil. The heather sheep requires to be kept to a greater age before
fattening. The same may be said, indeed, of any kind of animal
whatever; but Mr. Bogue, who feeds so successfully, and at so early an
age, never allows the lambs to lose their first lyre, so that no uncom-
mon waste has to be replaced by the feeder.


THE SOUTHDOWN BREED.
63
The great secret in keeping the black-faces is not to overstock.
They will bear a large amount of cold and wet, and will live and
thrive on a very poor pasture; one, indeed, on which, perhaps, no
other animal will thrive or grow they will fatten upon; but they are
so seldom tried even with this, that age has to make up what neglect
has previously done, that it is absolutely necessary to keep them to a
period of their lives beyond that, perhaps, of almost any other sheep.
Heavy stocking will nearly always make the difference between good
and bad produce—it will diminish the size of the sheep-throw him
back in his feeding, and the breeder and the feeder will be a much
greater time in having their produce ready for the market.
The Southdown Sheep is in England what the black-faced sheep is

Weör pel
THE SOUTHDOWN.
in Scotland, being far the most popular as a mutton-producer, at least
for the tables of the rich. Nor can there be mentioned a breed which
has undergone more improvement in the last few years than these
beautiful sheep. As a style and class the Southdown is unique. The


64
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
hair on his face is black or brown, short, even, and fine. The wool is
short, close, and remarkably fine in texture and quality. It lies thick
over the whole body, and has, when touched, a peculiarly velvety
softness, with all the elasticity of a piece of India rubber. The top of
the head is free from wool; the countenance is fine and placid ; the
eye is full and expressive, but mild and gentle, and somewhat large
and prominent. The ears are small, falling backward and little
upward. The hair is small, and the legs short, especially from the
knees to the feet. The breast is full, round, and prominent, as well
as moderately wide; the neck thick and short, but free from loose
fleshy skin. The top of the back is straight and flattish, but not
remarkably broad; and the side ribs are moderately arched. The legs
are full, but gently rounded, and tapering downwards; and the belly
is nearly straight, but a little tucked in behind the shoulders. The
wool is remarkably fine, and is the only kind of English wool alto-
gether suitable for the finer class of cloths. They are hornless, and
comparatively hardy, occupying the downs of Dorset, and now gradu-
ally spreading into Norfolk, Yorkshire, Hampshire, Kent, &c. In the
London market, where their mutton is considered superior to all other
kinds, they are in great request.
We have just described the present improved Southdown. The
older and unimproved breeds were low, and light in the fore quarters,
but backed with good saddles and legs. The improvements have not
gone on by crossing from other breeds, but from selecting the best,
and breeding carefully from them. To the Duke of Richmond and
Mr. Ellman we are particularly indebted for this improvement. And
while the symmetry and points of the animal are so much improved,
the fine quality and grain of the mutton, the equal distribution of fat
and lean, the marblings of the flesh, the bright dark mutton, and the
internal fullness of tallow, are all most fully sustained. The early
maturity of the breed has been attained; the fattening has also pro-
gressed ; and the wool is made longer, being about four inches,
though not yet long enough for combing. The fleece usually weighs
from two and a half to three pounds; and the average weight of the
carcass may be taken at eighteen pounds, though the improved breed
will often weigh from twenty to twenty-three pounds per quarter.
This sheep requires a dry chalky limestone or gravelly soil, with
fine short herbage, on which they will thrive, and accumulate their
mutton better than in more luxuriant lowlands. They are
peculiarly suited, also, for folding or stalling, to which circumstance
we shall have hereafter to allude. The ewes are prolific breeders,


THE CHEVIOT BREED.
65
-
two bearing twins to one being single; and the draft ewes are usually
sold off, at four years old, to feed in the turnip districts of Norfolk
and Suffolk.
The care of the sheep is nowhere better understood than by the
Sussex farmers, who house and shelter the flocks in severe weather,
at and near the lambing season. When the lambs are a-foot, they are
well provided with shelter, and their dams with nourishing food. The
Southdown is a sheep remarkably free from disease, especially the
sturdy and the rot.
With the uses of the Down we shall deal when the subject of
breeding is considered; in the mean time, we shall consider the
Cheviot Sheep,--which is another of the hornless breeds of mutton-
producing sheep, little inferior to any of the above, either for hardiness
or for valuable mutton. It is hornless, and has a white face and
legs, remarkable for their snowy whiteness, somewhat resembling the
cover of the hills during the larger period of winter. The striking
characteristic of the Cheviot flocks is their extraordinary likeness to
each other, how many soever there may be.
The fault of the Cheviot sheep is narrowness of the back, ribs, and
shoulders, from which arises their incapability of carrying a large
accumulation of mutton. Judges of the best kind, therefore, choose
those with broad faces, because this characteristic is indicative of a
broad bony development.
In selecting lambs, or even fattening sheep, the hand of the grazier
grasps the back-bone, over the kidneys, and judges by its broadness
whether it is sufficiently capacious to carry the complement of flesh
and fat which he calculates putting upon it.
The eyes of the Cheviot are small, but prominent and lively. The
body is long; the fore-quarters somewhat light; the legs clean, and
small turned; the feet thin; the wool close and fine, but neither so
soft or so elastic as that of the Southdown, but too thick for combing.
The improvements in the sheep have added a little to the breast and
shoulders; neither have they diminished the feeding qualities, or
injured the wool. The neck and shoulders are fuller. The breast has
become slightly prominent, but still narrow. The back retains its
narrowness, but the fall behind the shoulders, common in the old
breeds, has been filled up. The ribs are still flatter than either the
Southdown or the Highland The animal unites the fat with the
muscles, and is, when fat, well covered internally with tallow. They
are remarkably hardy animals, and live on very poor and stunted food


66
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
growing on the mountains of Northumberland. In storms of snow,
they seem peculiarly calculated to forage for their food, and the snake-
like head, as it peers out, seems well calculated for wedging amongst
the deep snows which often cover its native mountains for long suc-
cessive periods. They also bear travelling and driving better, perhaps,
than any other kind of sheep, and are sometimes driven very great
distances.
So much hardiness of character has induced many far-seeing
Scotch farmers and breeders to adopt them on the Scottish mountains,
and they are to be found successfully bred and thriving on the hills of
Sutherlandshire ; while they have also an extensive range on the
Yorkshire hills,
The Cheviot mutton is smaller in the grain than the Leicester, and
is a very tender, sweet, and delicate kind of Aesh. It is neither 80
bright nor so high-coloured as that of the Southdown or the Highland,
but it has somewhat of its high flavour, and the fat is more dispersed
and less luscious than that of the Leicester. They are now sometimes
fatted at one year old; and the flesh resembles in appearance, when
well kept, the Welch mutton, but it is more tender, and not so high
in flavour. The bags will weigh 14 lbs. or 15 lbs. per quarter, and
the two shear-wethers will sometimes weigh as much as 22 lbs.
Instances are mentioned where they have been made to weigh 25 lbs.
per quarter, but these are extreme cases.
The recent improvements of the Cheviots are chiefly owing to a
mixture, very cautiously infused, of the Leicester blood. But this
requires great care. The Leicester is a tender and delicate sheep,
unsuited to the snow-clad moors of Northumberland, of Westmorland,
and of Scotland; but while a single dash of Leicester will improve
the frame, lengthen the wool, and increase the feeding propensity, it
will not be so severe (if the impression be carried rapidly back to the
Cheviot race) as to weaken materially the vital power of the
animals,
The question, when Cheviot and when black-faced sheep should
be selected for breeding and rearing on mountain pasture, depends
upon the following criteria :-
When the produce of the hills is simply black furze, or heather,
the black-faced Highland sheep will be preferable. When the grass
is green, though ever so poor, the Cheviot will pay a greater amount
of profit.
The following, taking this principle, will be about the comparative
merits of the two breeds :-


68
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
mutton sold in the London market. The two haunches are usually
cooked together, undivided, and present a most uncommon appearance.
The wethers are killed at four or five years of age, and will then
weigh, when fat, only eight or nine pounds per quarter. The ewes
usually weigh two, or even three, pounds per quarter less. The sheep,
when alive, is a goat-like animal, somewhat resembling the gazelle of
the Nimroud sculptures. The ram has two crumpled horns, rising
upwards, and falling backwards again to the neck. The ewes are
usually hornless. The neck is long; the shoulders high and thin;
the breast small, narrow, and backward ; the legs and loins full and
broad. The ribs re flattish, and the belly a little depressed ; the tail
long, and bushy towards the extremity, nearly down to the middle of
the hind legs. The bones are remarkably small. They are the most
active and sure-footed race of sheep we know. They are essentially
wild in their habits, and clip about two pounds of somewhat fine wool.
The ewes are sometimes milked by the Welsh farmers; but this pulls
them down, and is very injurious to them. Some persons clip them
twice; that is to say, they shcar them at the usual time in June, and
again take off part of the wool from the fore-quarters in the month of
October, alleging that they are less liable to have it torn off by the
furze and briars, and more able to forage for their daily supply of
scanty herbage amongst the bushes in winter.
Dorsetshire Sheep.-With our notice of this breed we shall close the
present chapter. Though not remarkable as a mutton-producer itself,
it is used for the purpose of supplying London with that form of it
called lamb. It has the peculiarity, common to no other breed, of
breeding twice a-year. The mutton, however, is fine-grained, and well
flavoured. The Dorset sheep is not unlike the Merino at the first
blush. It has a fine, small muzzle; face and legs covered with fine
hair; and these, with the wool, are completely white. The horns are
large and spiral in the male, exactly resembling those of the Merino;
and in the female they are bent downwards by the side of the face,
describing nearly a circle. The wool is fine and short, and amounts
to eight or ten pounds per animal. The breast is full, but narrow,
and by no means deep; the shoulders light; the neck rather long;
and the legs the same, but light boned. It stands taller than the
Southdown. The hind-quarters are heavy, and the tail long and
bushy at the end. The ears are long, and extend sideways; the eyes
full, prominent, and expressive. The wethers are sold for the butcher
at three yeurs' old, and weigh from eighteen to twenty pounds per


THE DORSETSHIRE BREED.
69
quarter. They are good feeders; the mutton is well marbled ; and
they travel well to market.
The great peculiarity of the Dorset sheep appears to be, that while
other breeds receive the ram only at one and the same season, the
Dorset will take him all the year round, and even while the lambs
are suckling. There is thus the power of supplying lamb at any
season of the year for the pampered appetite of the epicure; and
vast sums are thus realized by those who keep them for the purpose.
Nor is this peculiarity one which at all applies, as might be supposed,
to the mild climate or favoured pasturage of Dorsetshire. The breed
possess the same peculiarity in all parts of the country, even in
Scotland ; though it must be obvious that the rearing of lambs at the
period of mid-winter is far more likely to proceed favourably in the
mild and genial south-west of England than in the colder and more
northern climes.
The ewes take the ram in May, so that they will produce in
October; and the early lamb at Christmas, in London, is obtained
from this late produce. These lambs are house-fed, in a great
measure; though the general mildness of our recent winters, and the
chilliness of our springs, have rendered the rearing of our winter
lambs more easy and certain than that of our ordinary spring lambs.
The lambs are usually dropped about Michaelmas, and then put into
a house or shed; while the ewes are partly allowed to be with them,
and partly to roam and feed, either permanently or temporarily, in
walled crofts, which are preserved full of grass, for the purpose of
affording them a full supply of the most succulent food. In addition
to this, turnips, rape, cabbages, &c., are added, which, by the most
scientific farmers, are cut or chopped; and troughs are also placed, by
which the ewe is supplied with cake, oats, peasmeal, or such mixtures
and variety of food as she may be disposed to take, or which may be
had with the greatest facility, or be the cheapest in the market.
The lambs are laid in dry warm houses, well littered with straw.
They are also supplied with lumps of chalk to lick, to keep off the
scour, to which they are very liable from the richness of the mother's
milk. At first the dams are allowed to suckle them three or four
times a-day; but as they grow older, and the crofts fail, the ewes are
driven farther away to pasture, and they return to the lambs only at
night.
When a lamb dies the ewe is still retained to milk the rest in turn,
and stands are made with stocks, into which she is fastened until
her udder is thoroughly drained. This takes place before each lamb


70
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
is allowed to suck its own mother; and thus the loss of a few lambs
is often no great injury, the whole stock deriving a larger proportion
of the fattening milk.
The price at which the lambs are sold will vary, but sometimes
they produce as much as £3, though £2 is possibly nearer the average,
which is a large sum for the care and small period of time (about eight
weeks) during which the lambs are being fattened.
When grass lamb is intended to be produced, the ewes are put to
the ram at a later period, so as to have the lambs dropped about
March, and only partial shelter is provided. The ewes are kept in
the same liberal manner. The lambs have more liberty, and are
much less trouble to their owners. Ten or twelve days after lambing,
kept as they are on food so highly nutritious, they will again often
admit the ram, and thus will bear lambs twice in the year. Of
course, those which are house-fed have by far the best chance of suc-
cessful breeding, as the second time of producing the grass-fed lamb
would be an inconvenient portion of the year, when the young would
be likely to suffer damage from flies, &c.
We shall close this chapter with a slight notice of a very ancient
and singular race-the Herdwick breed of sheep, common in the
mountainous districts of Cumberland and Westmoreland. These
sheep are very small and lively. They are polled, have speckled faces
and legs, wool short and rather fine, weighing about two-and-a-half
pounds per fleece. The ewes weigh six to eight pounds per quarter,
and the wethers perhaps eleven pounds. In winter they scratch down
to the breast through the snow, and live on a small amount of very
poor food. They are said to be more hardy than almost any other;
and rams of this very diminutive breed are sometimes purchased to
improve the hardiness of other breeds, though they must also influence
their size.
The first samples of this breed, we are informed, were found in the
wreck of a ship early in the eighteenth century; and from the few
then saved the race has spread throughout the higher-lying parts of
the northern counties of England. Their original country is said to
be Scotland, or some of the islands north of it; but as no corresponding
breed now exists there, the whole relation may be doubtful.
A very remarkable characteristic of the breed is, that they have
fourteen ribs instead of thirteen, the number possessed by all others.
The wethers are killed at four or five years old, and weigh about
ten or eleven pounds per quarter when fat. They seem not only to


WOOL AND MUTTON-PRODUCING BREEDS.
71
thrive best on their native pastures, but when the ewes are driven
away they will invariably return at lambing time to their old quar-
ters, however distant they may be. This shows a remarkably wild
instinct, and is of the same character as that of the black-faced
Highland sheep,-flocks of which will sometimes actually swim
across the Firth of Forth to find their way to their native mountains.
The ewes, like those on the Welsh mountains, will breed for
fifteen or twenty years, and are always kept as long as they will con-
tinue to do so; the sales being made of the fatted wethers. When
killed at home, the legs are usually cured and dried, the same as pig's
hams; and it is jocosely said that the inhabitants of these uplands
never eat mutton but when they find a fallen sheep, which, when they
do, they shake by the leg, and if it drops to pieces it is rejected, but
if not, it is carried home, dressed, and eaten. This will certainly be
gumeish enough for the most depraved palate ; but it is remarkable
that the strong heath-like flavour is the one which the epicures chiefly
seek after in purchasing their mutton in the markets of large towns.
CHAPTER VI.
BREEDS PRODUCING BOTH WOOL AND MUTTON.
ALL breeds of English sheep produce both these necessaries of life;
though some, as we have seen, secrete and produce more of the one or
the other, suited, in a peculiar degree, to the wants of the manufacturer
or of human sustenance. Luxury demands peculiarities in both. It
will be clothed in dresses, fine and soft, to please the eye and gratify
the touch; and more than warmth is her object. It will not be
satisfied with the quantity of food ; it must be aggregated on par-
ticular joints, and must be of a peculiar flavour. Hence luxury
selects those kinds of animals which feed on the most worthless food.
Thus extremes will sometimes meet; and the extreme of luxury be
met by the extreme of want and privation.
But these are animals which, though unfit to be placed in the cate-
gory of those ministering to epicurean taste, will minister extensively
to man's necessities, and manage to secrete large quanlities both of
wool and mutton ; the one not so fine, perhaps, as luxury requires, and
the other not so highly flavoured ; but both well suited, in a very high
degree, to the real wants of mankind.



72
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
Foremost in this list stands the Leicester Sheep, or the new Leicesters,
a name by which they are better known since the improvements of
Bakewell. The original Leicester sheep was large and bony. It had
the type of the Teeswater, the Lincoln, and the Romney Marsh
character, or generic qualities representing the whole combined. It
was a large heavy sheep, with disposition to feed favourably, but
w
1
THE LEICESTER.
with much heavy grossness about its composition. They were
doubtless identical with the type of sheep so common to the district
of the long-woolled and large carcassed animals; and which, probably,
the Scottish invaders once took from the valleys of the Tees. They
were flat-sided, heavy-boned, long-legged, coarse in the pelt and
offal, with long excellent combing wool. The rams would weigh,
when fat, 40 lbs. per quarter; and the fleece would weigh 13 or
14 lbs. On the rich Leicestershire meadows they would be fatted at
three years old; yet not to the weight we have just mentioned;
though a four years old sheep might attain that weight.


WOOL AND MUTTON-PRODUCING BREEDS.
73
It was on these animals that Bakewell began to experiment,
with a view to improvement. Bakewell and his flock were first
heard of in 1760, when he commenced the system of letting rams, as
distinguished from selling. The usual course was for the farmers to
save the best of their several flocks, and reserve them uncastrated, as
male lambs. Bakewell began a letting system; but so little was it
liked, and so little was thought of his rams, that he let one in that
year for the season for only sixteen shillings.
Bakewell stands alone in merit as an improver. He took the
native sheep, reduced his size, gave him small offals, induced him to
lay on flesh and fat all along the breech, the sides, the shoulders, the
flank,'and the neck. He opened his wool, and also reduced it in
weight, and a little in length. He increased the tendency to lay on
fat in proportion to the food consumed, and made the animal take on
fat a year or two earlier at least; by which he enabled two or three
animals to be fed where one only was fed before. And this was not
a fitful temporary change in the animal. It was permanent and
indelible; and the same breed of sheep has, for nearly a century, not
only maintained its position, but has been used with more or less
success to improve nearly every breed of sheep in the United King-
dom, and, at the same time, has more or less displaced almost every
other breed.
How did Bakewell accomplish these objects ? This is a secret.
He died without revealing it; and we have to guess at the probabi-
lities. The breeders of the Teeswaters, of the Downs, and of Lincoln,
all claim the breeds as the souree of his improvement of the old
Leicester stock. They allege that he might reduce the bone and frame
by a simple dash of the favourite blood, and thus obtaining a firm
superstructure, breed in and in, until it was indelible. But this is
very improbable, as it is not likely that any cross could have so
firmly taken possession of a race, and made them all alike. It is
rather an indication of purity of breed than of any cross whatever. He
doubtless selected those animals which corresponded with his ideas of
what were the best, with light offals and a tendency to feed, and that
exhibited early maturity and very unnatural forms; for these are the
invariable concomitants of the state of things above referred to: and
he had plenty of opportunity of selecting those which suited his pur-
pose.
It seldom happens that one great man discovers any new fact or
principle in science alone. Discoveries, according to Providential
arrangements, seem to be made in different places at once. Mr.


74
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
Joseph Allom, of Clifton in Leicestershire, who rose from the plough-
tail, by his mind and energy, to be an extensive farmer and breeder,
was known to select and purchase choice ewes from all parts of the
country, chiefly from Melton. He had a breed which were great
favourites before Bakewell was heard of. Specific characteristics we
cannot very easily define. Mr. Youatt slurs even Mr. Allom in a
note; and in the text says, “up to this period" (the middle of last
century) “very little care had been bestowed in the breeding of
sheep.” Mr. Marshall goes to the other extreme, and says that the
origin of Bakewell's improvements are due to Allom. The truth is
probably between the two. Allom's stock might be made available to
Bakewell's purposes; and his practice might set the latter to work,
in more zealously improving the breed.
Another cause was also in operation towards the same end, and
doubtless gave another opportunity for Bakewell's selecting his speci-
mens to improve his breed. In 1747 there were some successions of
bad seasons, which so operated on the succulent grass of Leicester-
shire as to sweep off nearly the whole of the sheep on the lower clay
soils of that county. This banished the more wealthy farmers from
the district, and they had to take refuge on the wolds of Yorkshire ;
and then purchased some small horned fine-bred sheep, for a supply
to their decimated flocks. The trade of jobbing thus commenced, and
it is said that Bakewell employed the jobbers who brought down,
from time to time, these Yorkshire wold sheep, to allow him to call
out the best before they offered them to the farmers. He thus
obtained compact, square, rapidly-feeding animals, and persevered,
year after year, in selecting the best, in his judgment, from his own
flock, until he had obtained the celebrity which has handed down his
name as the greatest improver that ever lived ; and the once new
Leicester sheep has become the Leicester sheep; so completely has it
eaten out its progenitors.
Bakewell began to let, as we have seen, at the moderate price of
sixteen shillings. Allom had before obtained the large sum of three
guineas for the use of his superior ram lambs. In 1780 the former
realized ten guineas for the loan of a ram for a season, and in six years
more he lets one ram for 300 guineas. After this his celebrity rose to
its height, and the demand for his stock became quite a mania. One
hundred guineas was considered a small price for the loan of one of
his rams. Three to four hundred guineas was by no means an un-
common sum; and on one occasion he had ten guineas per ewe for
every one served by a celebrated ram, which he made to serve 120


WOOL AND MUTTON-PRODUCING BREEDS.
75
times. He let one ram subsequently for one thousand guineas; and
as his sale ewes were always put on lowlands, where they were
sure to become the victims of rot, he managed to keep his female
animals from spreading; and, indeed, would allow no access to his
breed but through the rams which he let, at the enormous sums we
have named.
So much for the origin of the Leicester. He is, indeed, the type
of a sheep suited to the grazier in every respect. The head and legs
are covered by very short fine hair, so thin and fine that the skin is
partially visible through it. The colour is whitish, but not the snow..
white of the Cheviot; but it has a bluish tinge, and is as soft almost
as down. The head is fine and small; the eyes very full, but quiet
in expression; the ears thin, fine, of moderate size, and tending
backwards; the neck rather short, fine, and free from all flabby skin
or flesh, and thickening as it proceeds to its junction with the
shoulders, but so forward that the prominent breast is in a line with
it, and regularly filled up by the base of the neck. The breast is
broad and full, as well as forward. The back is perfectly straight,
from the setting in of the tail to the top of the head; the latter not
rising upwards, but horizontally set on. The ribs are arched; the
shoulders round and thick. The legs are broad, so as to give a table-
like appearance to the back of the animal: they stand wide apart,
and are somewhat short. The ribs extend well towards the legs.
The quarters are long and full. The wool is somewhat long and
spirally curled, set on very open upon the skin, and hair extremely
white and soft, though strong. The inside has not so much develop-
ment of fat as in some breeds, but it is laid on externally in greater
quantity. The weights may be taken at 25 to 30 lbs. per quarter;
the wool 7 to 9 lbs. each.
As a turnip feeder, the Leicester is, perhaps, the most successful of
all breeds of sheep. The fat is in greater quantity, aggregated on
the surface, than, perhaps, any breed whatever; and it will lay on as
much fat, for the food consumed, as any other kind of sheep, if not
We refrain, however, from entering into comparative feeding
qualities at this part of the treatise, as it will be subsequently investi-
gated; but the great qualification of the Leicester is his power to
assimilate and convert the green crops into fat and flesh.
Perhaps a better proof of the value of the Leicester could not be
afforded, than in the fact that they have superseded a vast proportion
of the sheep of this country, from every circumstance of pasturage
and climate, and established themselves in their stead; but they
more.


76
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
have also been used to improve the desirable points of almost every
breed, which still at all keeps its ground.
The early maturity of the Leicester, and his disposition to accu-
mulate fat, equalled only by the short-horn amongst cattle, is certainly
unequalled by any other sheep in existence; and it is the only sheep
which can, with any degree of success, be fattened at one year old.
The Cotswold. This breed stands next, perhaps, to the Leicester,
as a producer of mutton and wool. It is larger than the pure
Leicester. It has a large frame and heavy fleece of wool. It stands
high in estimation in its localities, as a rapid fat producer and a good
grower of wool. In hardihood it exceeds the Leicester; in the pro-
lific character and milking qualities of the ewes it is superior. They
will also bear inferior pasture, though a larger sheep, and may be
considered as one of the oldest and primest breeds of sheep in the
kingdom; for while the new characteristics of the Leicesters have
only been developed at most a century, they have been stationary in
Gloucestershire, as a standard long-wooled sheep, since the time of
Queen Elizabeth ; and even by Markham they are described as long-
wooled sheep. They are certainly deficient in early maturity : for
though sometimes fed at fourteen or fifteen months old, they are
more frequently two years before they are really prime or “ripe.”
Originally they were like most of the early and indigenous breeds of
sheep bred on the uplands, and kept till two years old, and then
fatted in the valleys-especially the vale of the Severn. But when
the alternate system of husbandry became common on the Wolds of
Gloucestershire, they were put to breed and fatten there mainly by
the seeds and turnips.
The tendency of the Cotswold is to accumulate fat upon his
back. The breast is not so wide, deep, or prominent as that of the
Leicester. The bone is larger and the sides flatter, nor are the
shoulders and the legs so broad and prominent. The handling, too,
is different. The fat and flesh seem laid in the back, in an accu-
mulated and unyielding mass; whereas the Leicester has the soft
yielding elastic firmness which reminds you of substance, and at the
same time is pleasant and soft as velvet. This may arise from the
fineness of the pelt. The Cotswold, on the contrary, has a thicker
pelt, and the wool is more straggling at the edges, and more matted
near the skin. The head is white, and so are the legs; while the
small ears fall downwards and outwards, and the top of the head is a
mass of soft bushy wool. The weight of the animal will some..


80
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
serrations. These are capable of being opened and compressed, and
felting is no more than the junction of these, and their compression
with one another. So far will this go, that even the smallest particle
of wool seems to possess the above quality. Youatt gives the serra-
tions of Southdown wool at 2080 in an inch, and in Saxony wool
2720. If the oldest and most worn-out cloth, in which the felting
has been only partially carried out, be torn to pieces almost resembling
dust, and subjected to heat and pressure, a thick kind of cloth,
formerly used for wadding for coats, and more recently mixed with a
small quantity of fresh wool and worked into new cloth, will be
produced. The machine which thus tears the filthiest rags is called,
from its many crooked teeth, a "devil,” and the refuse, when it has
passed through, is called “ devil's dust"-the latter part of which
appellation is absolutely expressive of its character.
To this felting property we have long been indebted for our hats.
It is mentioned in the “Iliad” of Homer.* Plato speaks of it as
« cloth made by the thickening of wool.” Pliny describes it with the
more practised eye of an observing natural historian, as “parcels of
wool driven together by themselves make cloth.” Herodotus, when
he describes the clothing of Xerxes' army of Persian soldiers, says,
they wore “light and flexible caps of felt,” which he also describes as
used by the Medes and Bactrians. Julius Cæsar, 7 finding his soldiers
annoyed by the arrows of Pompey's army, describes them as making
shirts or clothing of felt, to protect them from the archers. Thucy-
dides mentions a similar device to protect the body from the effects of
arrows. The more peaceful Greeks used the wool for a more pastoral
purpose. They clothed their sheep with felted wool, according to
Aristotle, in order to produce an impression on the texture and colour
of the fleece. Tasso mentions that the Attic sheep were clothed to
improve and preserve their fleeces, and Demosthenes calls them "soft
sheep."
So well understood was the practice, that in relation to it and the
naked children of Attica, the cynic Diogenes said, “ he would rather
be the ram than the son of a Megareusian.” §
It was the impossibility of felting the hair of the goat and the
camel, doubtless, which first suggested the idea of weaving.
Tasso says—“As the sheep yields to man wool for clothing, so
the goat furnishes hair for the use of sailors, and to make ropes for
military engines and vessels for artificers. || .
The goats are
# Thucyd. iv. 34.
Diog. Laert. vi. 41.
| De Re Rusticâ.
. Il. X. 265.
+ Bel. Civ. iii. 44.


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE WOOLLEN TRADE.
81
shorn in a great part of Phrygia, because there they have long shaggy
hair. Cilicia (hair -cloths), and other things of the same kind, are com-
monly imported from that country.”
Aristotle and Pliny indirectly corroborate this testimony.
The character of this cloth is intimated in the prophetic symbols
of the signs of the second advent:—“The sun shall become black as
sackcloth of hair."
Dyeing seems to have been of very ancient origin; and Nature
appears to have suggested the idea in the rearing of black, white, and
party-coloured sheep. The city of Sæbaris stood between two rivers,
the one called by its own name, and the other Crathis. The white
breed seems to have flourished in one valley, and the black in the
other; hence the inhabitants believed that the sheep which drank of
the Sæbaris were black, while those which drank of the Crathis were
white. Horace speaks of the river Galesus,
“ Where flocks of richest fleeces bathe;"
as if an impression prevailed that the waters of the river had some
influence on the texture if not the colour of the wool.
The same idea of the value of the washings in that river, either in
dyeing, cleaning, or refining the wool, occurs in Martial,* where Chloe
gave to Lupercus
“Of Spanish Tyrian scarlet fleeces,
And togas washed in warm Galesus.".
The same writer makes the Apulian flock to be white :-
:-“Of white
thou hast to clothe a tribe sufficient stock—the fair produce of more
Apulian flocks than one." † That brown and red wools were also
grown, is shown by the same authority—“While Rome delights in
the brown, gay Gaul prefers the red, -gratifying her blood-thirsty
children.” “Tyrian purple” is alluded to by Juvenal. Bætis had
fleeces possessing “metallic tints,” especially the prized "golden hue,"
and also the sober native hues of " Bætic drab or grey.” The two
colours of Spanish wool were said, in 1607, 1 to be one à golden
yellow, and the other a ferruginous or brown colour. These colours
probably depended on the soil on which the animals fed.
The ancient monuments give the earliest indications of the wool
trade. On an ancient Roman altar dedicated to Hope, above the
emblematic ears of corn and the bee-hive, is a distinct bale of wool.
On the altar to Silvanus is the caduceus of Mercury and a bale of
• Lib. iv. Ep. 28.
+ Lib. ii. Ep. 46.
# By Raminez de Prado.


ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE WOOLLEN TRADE.
83
what kind of wool was manufactured there, or what kind of cloths
the demand of the day required-only, up to the present time, it
seems that this seat of manufacture was never wholly deserted in all
the turmoils and troubles of the times subsequent to the Roman inva-
sion, arising from foreign conquest or domestic feuds. It over-rode
the despotisms alike of the kingly, the baronial, and the priestly rule,
and is now bound up with the rapid advancement of the middle class
of society.
The mother of the wise King Alfred is spoken of as spinning
wool, and instructing her daughters in the same useful art. The
daughters of the subsequent King Edward the Elder were “set to
woll worke, taking example of Charles the Conquesteror.”
It was not until 1140 that any very definite or distinct allusion
is made to the British woollen trade by any historical document. A
petition was presented to King Stephen to enable them, by his charter,
to form themselves into corporations or guilds. The object of this
petition was to possess, under the monarch, self-government,—to have
the power of appointing their own members, and subjecting them to
such orders, laws, and regulations as they, from time to time, saw
expedient.
One reason why trade guilds were readily granted by a despotic
kingly power, was doubtless to squeeze from them more taxes than he
could from individuals. Thus our early despots were the longer enabled
to resist the baronial power, then becoming a great check upon the
crown. The guild of Winchester, the old established seat of woollen
manufacture, paid one mark (about forty shillings) for the power of
self-government; and an annual payment of £16 is afterwards noted.
The London weavers paid a similar sum; while that of Oxford paid
forty shillings. Others paid even larger sums, important in those
days, and showing these guilds to have been of great importance.
The Worcester guild paid 100 shillings for certain specific privileges,
and in ten years' time the decaying London guild paid £12 only.
In the year 1172 prohibitions against mixing Spanish with English
wool were published. Whether national prejudice, or a desire to
stimulate the improvement of the wool, was the object, does not now
exactly appear. Some imagine that it was done in the same way as
the celebrated hop-petition was framed, “because they would spoyle
the taste of drinke”.
!--so the Spanish wool would degrade the British
article. Be this as it may, this threw the British on their own
resources for the manufacture of broad cloth; and from that day they
acquired the power of manufacturing it independently of Spain.


BREEDING AND REARING.
87
22
1815.
1849.
Spain
4,937,438 127,559 lbs.
Germany
3,137,438 12,759,011
Australia
73,171 35,870,171 ,
Cape of Good Hope 23,363
5,377,495 »
East Indies
4,182,853,
The declared value of the woollen manufactures exported was-
In 1789
£3,554,160
1829
5,372,490
1847
7,897,402
Thus a greatly progressing trade has been going on during the
present century.
In England the woollen manufactures will always be intimately
bound up with its pastoral character. Though dependent, as will be
seen, on foreign countries for a large amount of the raw material, it
still derives a great mass from our own country; and the paying
character of sheep, both directly and indirectly, will have a great
tendency to keep up the mutual dependence and reciprocity between
the wool grower and the manufacturer.
The present extraordinary rage for cheapness is amongst the most
wonderful tendencies of the age. It is inducing the English manu-
facturer to make up fabrics mixed with calico, and to work up wool
dust, which will not redound to his credit or his high rank in foreign
lands.
CHAPTER VIII.
BREEDING AND REARING.
The principles of sheep-breeding differ but little from those of
breeding any other class of animals. The real intrinsic rules are in
all respects precisely similar. If one person is more successful in
breeding sheep, and another in breeding cattle, the cause is attri-
butable to that persevering attention which is required to keep the
mind undividedly directed to one particular pursuit; for if it be
diverted to two very different objects, one or the other, in all proba-
bility, will be more or less neglected. In order to succed in life, a
man must have one object. “Too many irons in the fire,” is an


88
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
adage more applicable to breeding animals, perhaps, than even to the
blacksmith, who runs the danger of “some burning, and some getting
cold.” The breeder must watch tendencies and results day by day;
and an alloy brought into his flock will, if the produce is not sacri-
ficed, be the ruin of the race.
The first rule is to breed from the best ; but this has its limitations
and restrictions. A man may easily ruin his flock by adhering to
this rule, without attending to its antecedents and adjuncts. There
are two modes of effecting it. One man will scour the whole country
to obtain the best ram, or to buy a few prize gimmers. From these
he will select the most promising, and insure better alliances for his
flock. The result will be a set of nondescript mongrels. Some
distant impurity of breed manifests itself; some tendencies, far back
in the genealogy of the race, break out, which are modified in one
case, and fostered in another, until the flock shows signs of indis-
criminate and injudicious dabbling.
Another man, better acquainted with the rules that regulate
vitalism, takes his own flock, and having selected the best, he takes
only those which he knows to be of the same breed; and thus goes on
steadily aiming at giving breadth to the animal. He knows that the
sheep, in order to thrive, must have a large lymphatic system. He.
must have a capacious chest and loins, and a frame on which to
secrete fat, with lightness of offal. Hence he does not select at first
that which has the most of these qualifications, but which is, perhaps,
the widest form, and most unlike his own flock; but he takes those
which show a tendency to pervade, in one uniform direction, not an
individual, but the whole of the flock; and this he takes to mend his
own. By this means all are a little improved in the direction he
requires; and all keeping alike in their general contour, there is a
kind of permanency and uniformity in the main features of the
improvement.
Hence, if we look at the flock of the first-named breeder, we shall
have breeds both large and small, “bony” and “ bloody,” rough and
fine, white faces and blue, coarse and tender,-in fact, a set of
mongrels, none of which was of sufficient value wherewith to form a
flock, and none to be depended upon for any future breed.
The other breeder, by his cautious and judicious course, has an
uniform flock—a mark both of purity and of skill; for no unskilful
man ever long kept a flock in a state of anything like similarity to
each other. Uniformity is as important to the jobber and the butcher
as it is to the grazier. The merit of being “even” is always appre-


BREEDING AND REARING.
89
..
ciated in a market, because they always suit the same class of
customers. One butcher buys a large fat animal; it suits his friends :
another, a light, thin one (wool being required by one, and mutton
by another); one requires fat, and another muscle; and to make an
uneven lot of sheep sell for all they are worth in a market, they
must be judiciously sorted.
Perhaps the best criterion of a good breeder is “brains.” He
must have great powers of discrimination and perception; and then
he will usually judge right. If he can readily see what suits his
flock, he can easily obtain the animal in one place or other.
The usual course is to breed from the flock-master's own ewes,
and to buy a ram from another breeder. The breeder makes two
selections :—first, he drafts off the ewes of his flock which are un-
favourable to his objects, then selects the best of his gimmers from
the flock of the preceding year; and, keeping an eye to the intended
characteristics of his animals, he selects a ram suited to their con-
dition, of the same breed. The ram must be one thoroughly bred.
Unless selected from his own breed, whose history, age, biography,
and chronology he knows off by heart, the ram must have been used
one year at least on a small proportion of ewes of the right kind, to
try the effect. This may appear over-cautious; but it is safe breed-
ing; and by this alone can thorough purity and caste, as well as
uniformity, be obtained.
If there is a difference in the general outline of a flock, this is to
be corrected by acting on the flock itself, and not by a new repur-
chase-a state of things seldom desirable, or, indeed, possible. Some-
times two, or even three, rams are given to specially-selected ewes,
in order to secure a more general uniformity. But this is seldom
satisfactory. Uniformity is best attained by drafting off regularly
the failing ewes, and breeding from one common sire, which appears
to have a peculiarly favourable influence on the breed, -greater even
than the mother appears to exercise on the flock; for while a mother
can only influence two animals, a ram will influence the whole of the
produce, in a greater or less degree.
The main points in a ram are too well known to require any
minute or elaborate description. The points attended to in the
preceding pages, descriptive of the different breeds of animals, will be
a general guide, more accurate than a very detailed description at
this particular stage. Light offals, fineness of skin, absence of super-
fluous and coarse wool, and broad and deep-round frame, are the
leading features. The back should be broad (especially near the


BREEDING AND REARING.
91
cal--are now decidedly the smallest. Breeders must earnestly look
to this, and be careful, in selecting the ram, to have masculine quali-
ties enough to secure a hardiness in the flock.
Before we describe the desirable qualities of the ewes, we must
here enter a protest against the unnatural practice adopted by some
ram breeders,-a practice too much fostered by the demands of their
customers, but a course absolutely destructive of the finest breeds.
The ram is a victim to his stomach. He is rendered miserable by
over-cramming, in order to be ripe for the “show” which is usually
held in August. Even art is resorted to, in order to exhibit the
unhappy animal in a state as fat as nature can make him. No
change of food, rung in infinitesimal changes,-no provocative of
appetite, -no promotive of sleep,—no comforting or quieting dose is
grudged or withheld for a moment. Cabbages, cake, corn, peas,
malt, even rum and new milk, are employed in succession to keep
the animal almost unconscious of want, or full to repletion. He is
heavy, and somnolent, and fat, and the ram hirer thinks he has got a
bargain. But the sale or letting being over, he is brought down.
In his over-fat state, he would not look at an ewe. The gastric
secretions had entirely overcome the sexual system. Hence, at
pairing time he is a decaying, and fading, and reducing animal; and
this, added to his previous pampering, makes his virility very doubtful.
The ewe should be straight and broad-backed, wide in the loins,
and, what is often a failure in ewes, deep-breasted. She will always
be sharper-angled than the ram; but breadth and depth, with fineness
about the throat and legs, should be a special object.
After what has been said of uniformity in the flock, it is hardly
necessary to say that the ewes should be as much alike as possible ;
and not only appear alike, but be, as nearly as possible, from the same
general stock, with the same tendencies and peculiarities; so that
any counter influence, brought to bear on the flock in the character-
istics of the male animal, might affect the whole flock alike in a
favourable manner.
The cross-breeding of sheep has attracted a great deal of attention ;
and it is odd enough, that it has all resulted in the adoption of one of
the ten or twelve pretty distinct breeds as the crossing race,-at
least on one side. Whatever may be the kind or quality of sheep, it
seems now to be a settled rule that the best cross which any sheep is
capable of is one with the Leicester. Whether Downs or Scotch High-
landers, whether Cheviots or Cotswolds,—they all seem to answer
the best when crossed with the Leicester.


BREEDING AND REARING.
93
purpose they are somewhat small,--their weight seldom exceeding,
and not often reaching, twenty pounds per quarter. The Cotswold
gives size ; and thus we may expect to see the Leicester increased,
perhaps, two pounds per quarter in the spring, if the tendency to
fatten is not diminished by the cross, which seems not to be the case.
We have seen a few specimens, but hardly sufficient to be able as yet
to form an opinion so accurate as to speak with any great degree of
confidence. Mr. Peter Stevenson, of Rainton, a sound experi-
mentalist, has for two years persevered in sending for Cotswold
rams to his Leicester ewes; and the lambs have shown the fattening
propensities of both, with an improvement in frame and size,—both
great objects to the grazier and the breeder.
A cross of a wider difference is that of the Leicester and the black
face. This, though an union of breeds apparently so dissimilar, is
one of a well-established character, and is both profitable and suc-
cessful. The hardihood and good mutton-qualities of the one, added
to the feeding qualities of the other, produce a cross of a very valu-
able kind. Mr. Dickson mentions a specimen, slaughtered by him,
weighing 394 lbs. per quarter, and having 12 lbs. of wool, selling at
ls. 3d. per lb., nearly as fine as the Leicester. These, though
wonderful exceptions, are indications of the thorough success of the
cross, which is now very extensively adopted on the hill sides of
Scotland;
and vast numbers of the sheep, valuable both for wool,
mutton, and hardihood, are now consuming the green crops of the
north. So general has now become the system, that it is calculated
that there are 15,000 true bred Leicester ewes employed in breeding
rams for the purpose of crossing in Scotland.
To form some idea of the result of the cross, it may be taken as
follows:—The sheep, at from eighteen to twenty-four months old,
will average 21 lbs. per quarter, and the wool may be 5 lbs. per
fleece, worth 1s. per lb. They are fed on seeds in summer and
turnips in winter. They are a hardy, profitable race, which feed
with considerable facility; and they always command a ready sale in
the market. The ewes are kept entirely pure, and are intended for
black-faced breeders; or a black-faced Highland ram is kept for the
ewes intended to breed store gimmers.
The Leicester sheep used are by no means of the very highest breed.
They are good, useful animals, but by no means delicate ; and some-
what lower in the scale of pedigree than would be admitted in the
catalogue of true Leicesters; but, hardened and acclimatized, they
make an excellent cross.


94
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
The cross between the Leicester and the Cheviot is also in favour,
and is one which has been perhaps longer practised than that of any
other breed. The crosses are fast swallowing up the pure Cheviots,
as far as sales at the markets are concerned; and fully two-thirds of
the sheep with Cheviot blood are now crosses with Leicesters. The
size, the fatting propensities, and the early maturity obtained by the
cross, and modified by the hardiness of the mountain breeds, render
the union peculiarly valuable. An increase in the market-value of
from 2s. to 2s. 6d. per head is secured by the new infusion of blood.
If a breeder has 500 or 1,000 sheep, it will make a difference of
possibly £150, or more, in his receipts; and this at little extra cost,
the small amount of better keep, scarcely appreciable in a farm,
making all the difference.
Some parties carry the cross further. Not that they breed the
crosses between each other, but they again carry the crossed lambs, or
hoggs, to a Leicester ram, and this as often as four or five crosses,
until the Cheviot blood gives way to the Leicester; enough only
being kept to secure sufficient hardihood for the high-lying lands and
exposure of the north. These are sold at fifteen or sixteen months
old, and will even then weigh 17 to 18 lbs. per quarter. Sometimes
they are fattened on their natural hills, and sometimes sold southward
to graze,-grass-feeding being more favourable to them than being
confined to turnips. We happen to have some grey sandy soil, on
which they will die in great numbers, from no apparent cause.
The only cross where the Leicester breed is absent, of which we
can report anything remarkably successful, is that of the Cheviot and
Black-faced,—the rams of the former and the ewes of the latter. This
cross is calculated for barren pastures, and situations more exposed
than can be borne by any of the crosses before enumerated. The
sheep are particularly hardy. Indeed the union of two such hardy
breeds can scarcely tend to diminish that peculiarity; while the
quality of the mutton of both seems to be retained.
It is a cross
which requires perseverance. The first is not always entirely success-
ful. Carried back to the pure Cheviot ram, it improves at every
stage; until rapid feeders, good mutton, better wool than either of
the parents, and larger weights, are amply secured. Careless breeders
may soon select a bad specimen of both to breed from ; but when the
largest and broadest of both sire and dam are selected, the cross is
eminently successful, and is in great favour with the grazier, the
butcher, and the consumer.
Complications of crossing are not very successful. It is almost im-


BREEDING AND REARING.
95
possible to obtain uniformity by any complexity of breeds; and all
attempts should be on a small scale, and the results watched and
carefully noted. If a Leicester were brought to a cross between the
Cheviot and Highland, no one can tell what the result would be ;
probably, from the contentions of the counteracting blood, it would
be a hard feeder. A struggle would probably grow in the vital pro-
cesses very unlikely to tend, on the whole, to improve the physiolo-
gical tendencies required by the grazier; and some they might
probably destroy. A cross between the Teeswater and the Leicester,
carefully bred for a long period, might give both size and feeding
qualities to the smallest 'class of Cheviots; but it is doubtful if the
two first-named breeds were not originally identical, and that cross is
by no means a violent one. The same may be said of the Lincoln;
but we should by far prefer our own bred cross with the Cotswold at
once, as attaining all that is desirable by a more direct and certain
means.
We now approach the management of breeding ewes and rams, and
shall first apply our attention to the Leicester breed,—not only
because they require the most attention and care, but because their
management will, with little modification, apply to the best plans
adopted for almost every other breed.
From the last week in September the ewes begin to be better
kept. Either they are put on aftermath or clover stubble, or what
is by far the best, on rape. If a numerous produce is the great aim,
a most wonderful and almost talismanic effect may be thus produced.
It may be depended upon, that an increase of full thirty per cent. of
lambs may be attained by keeping the sheep on rape at the time and
just before the ram is admitted to the ewes. We have witnessed the
most remarkable instances of this. We have known flocks, in a run
where lambs were not a remarkably plentiful “ crop," where the only
single lambs were from those ewes which had been twice served by
the tup, and the last service had been after the rape was done, when
all the rest were double, with the exception of threes and even fours.
We knew a small farmer who had thirty-four lambs from fifteen ewes
so fed. The two cases of single lambs were those which had “
over,” as we before intimated.
A ram, when shearling or two shear, will serve sixty ewes, or even
eighty, if proper care be taken. The too common mode is to allow
him to run with the ewes at large. This is a great waste of the
animal's virile powers; and when as many as the last-named number
of ewes are given him, another course should be adopted. A shepherd
come


96
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
should be left in entire charge, a pen or pair of stocks, as it is indif-
ferently called, provided, and the ram kept confined in the house, or
in a very small croft. An active, lively ram should be sent with the
ewes, and should have an apron tied about the crop, so as entirely to
cover the genitals. If his breast is smeared with red it is no disad-
vantage, as it more distinctly marks the ewes. When an ewe is
observed in full season, she should be brought to the stocks, and
served by the ram with whom she is intended to produce, and imme-
diately carried away.
There are physiological objections to this; but when eighty ewes
are provided it is indispensable, and when twenty to thirty guineas
are given for the loan of a ram for one season, it is not unreasonable
to expect him to discharge more duties to the flock than is possible
by running at large. When the flock comes in season very rapidly the
ram serves them only once; if not, they are served twice, and then
turned away for a fortnight, when they are brought back to the teaser;
and he is then smeared with a blue or black colour, to distinguish those
who come once. When the ewes are not named, which, we are sorry
to say, is too often the case, they should all be numbered, and a register
kept of the ram and his breeding, and the date of each ewe being served.
This is not only an invaluable record in the case of pedigrees, but it
is still more useful as being a guide to housing, when near the period
of lambing; and, though the doggrel distich is true that-
“ There was never a shepherd, that ever begun,
Can tell whether they go nineteen, twenty, or twenty-one,"
still a very important classification is secured by those who have
their register, who cannot house the whole flock, especially in a time
of severity and difficulty.
When the active process of gestation has commenced, care should
be taken to prevent the ewes getting too fat. If they do, inflamma-
tory disease, absence of milk, and general risk, are sure to be the
consequences.
A run in the pastures, from October to the end of January, with
a little hay in foul weather, is far more wholesome keep than any
very nutritious or stimulating food. To put ewes on turnips with fat
sheep, is of the two a more dangerous evil than absolute pinching.
We had rather see ewes lean than fat in February. Assuming them
to be calculated to lamb late in March, a few turnips may be given
them on the grass from the month of February; and when within a
month of lambing, the most stimulating and invigorating food should


BREEDING AND REARING.
99
amount,—and yet his pay, as a journeyman, is contrasted to disad-
vantage with the farm-labourer, both as to his wages and his
qualifications.
But it is not always the servant who is to blame. It often happens
that the master himself does not thoroughly understand the principles
of natural history as applied to these animals. The lamb for the first
few weeks of its existence depends on the supply of food from its
parent alone. It is the very source, and contains all the elements,
half assimilated, of blood, of muscle, and of bone. At this stage the
supply of the mother is often neglected. She is exposed to cold, and
suffers hunger. The milk which nature drains from her system is
exhausting her powers, and yet no shelter nor extra food is afforded.
This is not the shepherd's fault, and he is not to blame if she
dies, or sheds her wool, or becomes unfit to rear her young. A
little corn, or cake, or artificial assistance, would have strengthened
the ewe, and supplied the lamb with its full modicum of necessary
food.
As soon as the lamb begins to eat, its auxiliary to nature's
food is often badly attended to. A pasture is selected for the mother
as unsuited for lacteal purposes as it is unfit for teaching the
offspring to feed, which thus prolongs the dependence of the latter
upon the former.
As the increase of vegetable food eaten by the lamb takes place,
the supply and the use of the milk diminish. And if a peculiarity of
constitution of the mother exists, or if any damage takes place to
the udder, or if nature has been overtaxed soon after lambing time,
she will become dry, despite of the efforts of the lamb.
At this stage they are often depastured on over-eaten seeds. The
bowels of the lamb are tender, and they can ill resist the purging
effects of this improper pasture; and hence the shepherd often has
scour in the unweaned lambs, and applies the shears and medicine
but, they die. He has not discovered that the lamb is weaned, and
has an improper pasture. It is with its mother, and he neither knows
nor cares whether she has milk or not. Medicine and shears do not
avail, and his lambs die of scour.
Nor at weaning time is a better provision made. The master
does take care to put them in a somewhat worse pasture, in
order to check the flow of milk, and to render the operation a
less risking one of the dam; but, unless he is careful, he is injuring
the produce.
Once place weaned lambs in over-eaten seeds, and the whole flock


MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
101
seem to grow upon them, despite every care, unless they are subjected
to frequent remedial applications.
If sale at one year old is intended, the lambs should be kept on
artificial food, from the very season of weaning; but this will be a
process more likely to be discussed in the following chapter.
CHAPTER IX.
MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
The question for stock-feeders used to be-how to raise the
greatest possible amount of animal food per acre at the least cost.
But, somehow or other, the question, as regards that at least, has
assumed a somewhat new form. The time was when the largest and
the fattest sheep commanded the best price. To take a small and not
over-fed joint of mutton into one of the large towns of Yorkshire or
Lancashire—to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, or Leicester, was to
run the risk of having the commodity neglected. But now it is dif-
ferent. The half-bred Scot or the Down, or at least half-Down, is the
only kind of mutton which will meet a market with favour.
The time was when a large joint of fat mutton was put over a
dish of potatoes. The meat went to the head of the family; the
potatoes, saturated with the fat and gravy, were a savoury meal of
the junior members. Thousands in the manufacturing and mining
districts have for years been brought up in this way. But now they
will have the small fleshy joints, with less fat; or they will buy them
at an inferior price. The feeders of the larger kind of sheep are
therefore in a worse position. The "good sheep" from 22 to 28 lbs.
per quarter-once the favourites—have now to go a-begging, and the
feeders of small half-bred animals obtain almost as much money for
their once-despised but now fashionable breed. This will soon react
on our best breeds; and it will cease to be an axiom that it is an
advantage to gain the most pounds of food at the least cost; but it
will be the production of that kind of food which will realise the best
price; therefore, peculiar rather than good quality will be the
desideratum, and the demand for beauty and symmetry will give
way to the requirements for early maturity and disposition to feed.
The general feeling will thus run wild after the ungainly forms of


102
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
black and grey-faced "rannocks," and set defiance to domestication
and low fences.
Those who wonder what could be the object of the high banks of
Norfolk, and the hedges at the top, will be succeeded by men who
wonder what men could mean by such low and useless fences as dis-
grace all our newly improved farms. The facts of the case are
beyond dispute. We will suppose a farmer purchasing a score of the
Leicester and Cheviot hogs at the same period, feeding them the same
time on the same food, and the results will be somewhat as follow :-
£. s. d. £. 8. d.
20 Leicester hogs, at 33s., bought in spring .
Then say 7 lbs. each of wool, at an average price of
7 138
1s. 1d. per lb., 78. 7d. each, or.
Sold off fat, say at Christmas, weighing 24 lbs. per
40 00
quarter, at 5d. per lb.
47 13 8
33 00
The 20 sheep will leave for food and profit
14 13 8
20 00
20 Cheviot hogs, at 20s.
Then say 3 lbs. of wool each, at ls. 1d. .
Sold off fat, 18 lbs. per quarter, at 6d.
3 5 0
36 0 0
39 5 0
1950
The sheep will leave for food and profit
Nor is this all. The case may be put in a much stronger light.
The Cheviots and half-breds will live and thrive on a poorer quality
and smaller quantity of food. And why? Because the taste will
not allow them to be fed so fat. It is old flesh or muscle, small joints
and light fat, which is the real desideratum in the manufacturing
towns where the great bulk of our sheep is disposed of.
Thus we have smaller capital employed, less risk, more kept,
inferior pastures stocked, a more ready market and greater profit by
the fattening of those which were once considered the inferior breeds
of sheep. Public taste in shape of appetite, and public taste in the
matter of symmetry and beauty, are at variance; but the former will
triumph, for it will pay the best.
To the breeders of Leicester and of the sheep peculiar to Lincoln-
shire, called improved Leicesters—to the Cotswold, and all this class
of sheep,—this is a “heavy blow and great discouragement.” The
pains and care and struggles of centuries are being put aside by the
luxurious tendencies of our manufacturing population, and we hardly
see our way clearly as to what they can do. It was hoped that when
the alleged cause of the change-the failure of the potato-had passed


MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
103
away, the people would return to their old habits; but, as Sam Slick
says, once accustomed to a luxury, and he is done--you will never
get them to give it up.” The potato is at least cheaper and more
plentiful, but the large, fat mutton is not returned to. It still sells
at an inferior price, and we fear it is likely to do so.
What are the breeders to do? There are two classes,—those who
breed pure, and those who breed cross animals. The former are the
best men of the day in showing fine specimens: they cannot charge
shape and quality—a beau ideal is before them, and woe to him who
violates it! But they must adapt themselves. They might at least
have a smaller animal,—they must sell him before he gets so fat.
Their breeds will be mature when very young,—they must sell their
hogs at one shear, and by rapid changes adapt their animals to the
wants of the market.
But to those who are less scrupulous, a cross with a Southdown-
the ewes being of the latter, and the ram of the Leicester breed—will
produce a very remarkable cross. A Bamboroughshire compact ewe,
with a Cotswold ram, we have not seen bred; but we venture to pre-
dict a useful and saleable cross.
Let the breeders of the northern breeds look out to improve
symmetry and beauty by judicious and patient selection. Why not
always breed from the best? Why not buy the gimmers, and hire
the rams, which won the Highland Society's prize, for a few years,
and make the old despised north sheep symmetrical ?
Though there is every probability of the most favoured kinds of
sheep, as they have been viewed of late, going downwards in public
estimation, because they did not grow the kind of mutton which sells
best in the market, yet still all our great agricultural societies adhere
to them as the best kinds. The Leicesters are at the head of every
prize list; and though the great improvements in the Southdowns
have given them of late a much higher range in public estimation,
and they are supposed to be a local rather than a general breed, still
they are gradually advancing in public favour.
Mr. Lawes instituted a series of inquiries as to the abstract food
and increase in weight of these sheep in themselves, and also as com-
pared with the Hampshire Downs, assuming the Sussex Down to be
the type of the original South Down sheep. The latter is the sheep
of Mr. Jonas Webb, R. Ellinan, and the Duke of Richmond: the
former is a heavier frame and larger weight, and is also a fatter and
more early mature sheep than the latter.
One disadvantage was, that they had to be fed on dry food; they


104
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
had oil-cake and clover chaff. At first they had food supplied in given
quantities, and proportioned to their weight. The quantity given per
day to the Hampshires was one pound of each; while to the Sussex
Downs it was only three-fourths of a pound of each per day. The
former weighed 113 lbs., and the latter only 88 lbs. Swedes were
also given ad libitum, but from quantities previously weighed. The
sheep were fed for twenty-six weeks; the Hampshires consumed
1249 lbs. of oil-cake, 1120 lbs. of clover hay, and 16,995 lbs. of
Swedes, and the increase of live weight was 428 lbs. So much for
the large sheep. The smaller, or Sussex Downs, in fact, consumed
965 lbs. of oil cake, 926 lbs. of clover hay, and 12,445 lbs. of Swedes,
and gave an increase in live weight of 324 lbs.
To put it in a more striking light, it required, to produce 100 lbs.
increase in live weight, the following quantities of each kind of food
in the Hampshires :-
lbs. OZ.
Oil-cake
294 0
Clover hay
259 12
Swedes
3941 0
Or a total food of all kinds .
4494 12
Whereas the Sussexes required, to produce 100 lbs. live weight, the
following quantities :-
lbs. OZ.
Oil-cake
314 4
Clover hay
304 3
Swedes
4086 0
.
Or a total food of all kinds .
4704 7
The Sussex sheep required, therefore, in twenty-six weeks,
20 lbs. 4 oz. more oil-cake, 44 lbs. 7 oz. more clover hay, and 145 lbs.
less Swedes, to produce 100 lbs. live weight, or about 7 per cent.
more oil-cake, 171 per cent. more clover, and 33 per cent. more
Swedish turnips, for the same result. The taste indicated a difference
in the animals : the Sussex sold at about 3s. 2d. per stone of 8 lbs.,
the Hampshire only 2s. 10d. per stone; and after paying their way,
and allowing for the purchased food, the cake and hay, the forty
Hampshire sheep left a profit, as well as the increase, of 6s. 7d.,
and the Sussex of 6s. Ozd. per head. The oil-cake is, however,
reckoned at only £6 16s. per ton—a price we are afraid it seldom
can be bought for—and the clover hay at £4 per ton. Nothing is
charged for attendance.


MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
105
As far, therefore, as this was a paying speculation, neither seemed
to answer. The Swedes, the attendance, the washing, shearing, and
other et-ceteras, would diminish the profit to less than nil; but this
was hardly the object of Mr. Lawes. As an experiment, it required
that care and control which it is most desirable to give in ordinary
experience, and therefore ought not to be taken as an invariable
conclusion; but it may go so far as to demonstrate that it may
not be always the best to drive too far for the increase of artificial
food.
The forty Hampshires consumed 491 tons of Swedes, and the
Sussex only 36 1-10th. The latter were, however, much the smaller,
and more would be consumed to the acre.
Mr. Lawes, however, puts the case in another light. He says,
“Suppose, then, that in both cases 100 tons of Swedes had been
eaten, we should have had consumed with them, and paid for by the
increase of the animal-
Oil-cake, lbs. Clover, lbs.
By the Sussex sheep
17,374 and 16,676
By the Hampshire.
16,470 and 14,767
904
1,909
“That is to say, in consuming 100 tons of Swedes (and the dry
foods), Sussex sheep would, according to our experiments, have given
the increase from 904 lbs. more oil-cake and 1909 lbs. more clover
than the Hampshires. To have consumed the quantities of food sup-
posed above, however, in twenty-six weeks, there would have been
required eighty Hampshire and about one hundred and ten of the
Sussex sheep."
Now this is what we have considered as the real position of the
sheep-feeder in our previous article. The larger sheep make more
flesh. From a given area of ground they consume less food for the
mutton and fat they elaborate and deposit; but being worth less per
pound it is really an advantage, in money matters generally, as regards
the production of fat and mutton, to graze the inferior kind.
Though the cases experimented upon by Mr. Lawes do to a certain
extent make out the principle we laid down, still it admits of excep.
tionable features. The large sheep in the north are the improved
ones. It is the reverse with the Downs—the small are the improved.
And this only strengthens our position. It takes the Sussex Downs
out of the category of unimproved breeds, and thus places the smaller
sheep in a position of undue advantage.
H


MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
107
highest 28 lbs.; the latter being the one which stood highest in the
second month. The average increase was 3 lbs. 5 oz. per head per
week.
Without pursuing the subject further, we may say that the final
mean weight, without wool, was 174 lbs.; the highest weight, 214 lbs.;
and the lowest weight, 147 lbs. The highest average increase per
week was, as we stated, the one before particularly referred to, which
averaged 4 lbs. 7 oz.; the lowest average being 1 lb. 14 oz., and the
general average 3 lbs. 2 oz.
The increase in twenty weeks per 100 lbs. of live weight took
259 lbs. 11 oz. of oil-cake, 219 lbs. 1 oz. of clover hay, and 3,608 lbs.
of Swedes.
Now, the comparison with the Downs of the two kinds before
referred to is as follows:--
::--The
lbs. oz.
Cotswolds gained per week
3 21
Hampshire Downs
2 12
Sussex Downs
But there was a difference in the food. The Cotswold consumed more
food-more of every kind than the Sussex Downs; and more, though
very slightly, of all but the clover hay, than the Hampshires. But
then they had a larger frame, and produced greater results. Taking
the 100 lbs. increase, for instance, as the test, as it ought to be, the
result is in every way in favour of the Cotswold, as the following
will show :-
Cotswolds. Hampshires. Sussex.
Oil-cake
294 lbs. 314 lbs.
Clover hay
219
259
304
Swedes
3601
3941 4086
2 11
239 lbs.
The increase in weight per 100 lbs. was about 2 per cent. greater with
the Cotswolds.
The“ balance-sheet,” always so satisfactory, is not here of the
same consequence as the experiment. It is not likely, when the animals
are so confined and often weighed, that so much can be defined as
clearly to make profit a guiding element. The cost of his sheep he
makes £66 10s.; the quantity of purchased food consumed by oil.
cake and clover hay, £29 6s. 5d.—a total of £95 16s. 5 d. ; while
the proceeds of the sale were £92 3s. 7zd., a small difference of
£3 128. 10d. in the lot, with the manure, for the risk, return for
capital, land crop, and Swedish turnips; but they were sold at a
“heavy” market, and thus may partly account for the loss.


108
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
There is one curious fact, in this and the preceding experiments,
which we cannot help noticing. Mr. Lawes observes that there is
some general uniformity observable in the quantities of food in their
fresh state, consumed by all the three kinds of animals, per 100 lbs.
live weight weekly. “But when the quantities of the respective
foods are calculated each to their contents of dry substance, it is
found that the total quantity consumed to a given weight of animal,
within a specified time, is all but absolutely the same for the three
breeds."
Now this opens to our view a wide field of the most difficult and
delicate investigation. Are all breeds to be considered so nearly
similar, that they take, per 100 lbs. live weight, nearly the same amount
of dry food per week ? Of the three dissimilar kinds—at least, two of
them—this seems to be correct. How far it is so of the other breeds,
time only will decide. But is the farmer to say that they are therefore
all alike to him? No such thing. Take the Sussex Down, for in-
stance : it consumed 9 or 10 ounces per week per 100 lbs. weight
more of clover hay than the Cotswold; but it consumes several less
Swede turnips. Now in some localities, and to some farmers, turnips
are difficult and clover hay easy of attainment. Here a class of
sheep is indicated, which, if this experiment is an invariable test, will
answer his purpose. Besides, weight for weight calculated dry,
vegetable matter differs in price very materially; and as this is the
real question with the farmer, may he not some day be able to appor-
tion his kind of sheep to his description of food, and thus make profit?
We hope so, or what will become of him?
The fattening of sheep at one year old must commence with their
lambing. Not only must artificial food be given to the lambs as soon
as they will eat it—not only must they be tempted to eat it—but they
must be supplied with it indirectly before they attempt eating, through
the lactiferous system of the mother. Oat, bean, and linseed cake may
and ought to be given to the parent animal, so that the offspring may
always have abundance of the materials wherewith to form bone and
muscle, and even fat. The fattest lamb (other things being equal) not
only makes the fattest shearling, but will eat the least amount of food
to produce any given amount of mutton.
The late lamented scientific agriculturist and philosophic naturalist,
C. Charnock, Esq., gave his ewes rape cake, and so trained the lambs to
eat it, and sold them at weights, which the writer hardly dares name, in
the following spring. Without discussing whether rape can be equal to
linseed, it is very questionable, if these are trained to eat it, whether it


MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
111
eat less by 3 stones of turnips per day than those exposed, and ulti-
mately 2 stones more, as well as 3 lbs. of cake per day. The result
was, that in three months two field-fed sheep had increased 36 stones
8 lbs., and the shed-fed 56 stones 6 lbs.- a difference in twenty sheep
of just 20 stones live weight!
This experiment gave the example for general imitation, and has
divided sheep-feeders into several classes ; viz.—the field-feeder, who
values the consolidation of the animal's kneading, and feeds out of
doors. Amateurs, like Mr. Mechi, advocate board-feeding, or houses
with hollow floors of boards, set on an edge sufficiently near to prevent
the sheep's feet from falling through; and one from his Cotswolds may
be fat at one year old. But his wheat was throwing out on his light
land; and while he was confining his sheep, to save expenditure of
food by exposure and exercise, we observed a boy driving them over
his wheat crop to prevent its destruction for want of treading. As we
disapprove of board-feeding, except under very special circumstances,
strong clay land, for instance, or some equally potent physical preven-
tative to the feeding out of doors—we think it fair to give the opinion
of a gentleman who warmly advocated it, -we mean the Hon. Captain
Dudley Pelham, who, however, is far more sensible than many who
advocate the plan, as he recommends its partial adoption only, carry-
ing half of the produce to the shed, and consuming the rest in the
field, -a plan far preferable to the carting of the whole-carrying back
the manure, and losing the consolidation of the animal's feet,—so in-
valuable, nay, so indispensable to light land cultivation.
“ The sheep,” he says, “ should be upon gratings, made with oak
frames and deal tops, three-quarters of an inch between the bars.
Beneath the gratings, which should be supported on either side,
without cross-supports, which are inconvenient in emptying the pit,
should be a tank or pit in brickwork, or rammed with marl, not less
than two and a-half to three feet deep, so as to contain all the manure
dropped by one lot of fattening sheep; thus avoiding the necessity of
disturbing the animals for the removal of the manure.”
Captain Pelham recommends gypsum to be thrown over the
gratings to prevent unpleasant smells, and that the sheds should be
even cooler than those intended for oxen, 45° being the point he con-
siders to be aimed at, while those of oxen he thinks should be 50°.
The size of the pens he recommends to be eight feet by six, and to
contain six Down sheep.
The quantity of food eaten by fifty Down sheep he estimates at
two tons; and sheep in these sheds he conceives will feed in about


MANAGEMENT AND FATTENING.
113
the grating d. If the ewes eat white turnips, the quantity of urine is
very great; if Swedes, it is less. When the lambs are cleaned out, the
manure is put in a shed, mixed with a little salt and gypsum, fre-
quently turned, when it is mixed with guano, bone-dust, &c., to drill
for turnips. Every sheep is led by the hand with a collar and string,
which works in a staple, similar to the mode in which horses are led.
The sheep here has all the privacy, quiet shelter, and warmth she
requires, with the gregarious principle still gratified ; and though at
first sight it seems unnatural to confine sheep by the head, we have no
doubt but for ewes the plan has decided advantages.
As to the comparative economy of feeding sheep at one or two years
of age, a deal may be said on both sides. While the early maturity
has quick returns and rapid turning over of capital, it is said to have
smaller profits. But in these times, when small sheep are decidedly
worth more in the market than large ones per pound, and almost as
much per head, the balance of favour will hold to the fattening at
one year old. The writer of this made a calculation of the difference
of produce of mutton to the nation by the two modes in the Farmers'
Magazine, * showing that during the two years the two-year-old feed-
ing system was in operation, the produce would be, on thirty acres of
land, 7,800 lbs. of mutton; and the same area of land would produce
11,600 lbs. in the same period by the one-year-old system, thus show-
ing a gain per annum of 1,900 lbs. of mutton on thirty acres of land
to the community.
He further calculated the comparative advantage to the feeder—a
question which is of the greatest importance, and will always have
the greatest weight; and he showed that with mutton at 6d. per lb.
the one plan would leave a profit on the two years out of which the
rent was to pay-of £62 10s. ; while that of the one-year-old system
will leave a profit of but £59 4s. The figures and calculations are
by far too voluminous to enter in this treatise, which is intended only
as an epitome; but the change in the demand for small mutton, since
the period when these calculations were published,t will somewhat
modify the calculation, and give the turn in favour of the one-year-
old system,-a course, it will be seen, which is only perfectly right,
as more capital will be required in the one year than in the two-
year-old system.
The comparative feeding properties of large and small sheep of the
same county has been a matter of much contention. Nobody will
seriously doubt that a large sheep will, other things being equal,
• Vol. XX., p. 105.
+ July, 1849.


114
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
consume more food than a small one. The question is argued and
re-argued between the advocates of Leicester and of Lincoln, as we
have seen it is between the Down and the Hampshire breeders. Mr.
Shakel, of Reading, made an experiment, which gave the palm to the
large and coarser kinds; and we hope it may operate with breeders,
both of Leicesters and of Downs, to prevent their aiming at sheep so
extremely diminutive. Indeed, the public taste, though in favour of
small animals, had rather have more muscle with the fat, than all fat
and no muscle. Mr. Shakel purchased 100 large Hampshires at 41s.
per head, and an equal number of small Downs at 35s. They had all
turnips ad libitum ; and on being sold out, after about six months'
keep, the Hampshires, which cost 418., sold for 61s. 3d. ; while the
Downs, costing 35s., sold but for 49s.—showing a difference in favour
of the large, and for the extra food doubtless eaten by them, the sum
of twelve shillings and threepence per head. The lambs were said
to have had the same area of food given them each day, but it is
hardly possible but that one might have wasted food, while the other
ate all up. It does not necessarily follow, however, that larger ani-
mals must invariably consume more food. That question will depend
very materially on the excellence or otherwise of the breed.
CHAPTER X.
DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES.
THERE is nothing in the whole range of domesticated animals so
difficult to manage as the sheep under disease. In acute diseases
the use of remedies seems to be utterly in vain. Disease then seems
to be ungovernable. The power of known remedies seems to be
exerted in vain; and this is of less consequence now, happily, be-
cause the system of management is so well understood, that the
animal is always kept fat and ready for the butcher, in order that, on
the first symptom of illness, he may be sent off and slaughtered before
the disease has affected his vitals, and little or no loss will take place.
But if otherwise, let sturdy, or rot, or inflammation take place, and
you may administer all the medicines in the world, and no effect will
be produced.
The shepherds should—especially during winter, when the animal
is much more subject to disease than in the spring or summer-keep


116
THE SHEEP, AND SHEPHERDING.
ficiently numerous, they should be under the care of two shepherds.
One should watch and tend them by day, and another by night, and
take alternate day and night watches; while the watcher should
rouse the sleeper in cases of difficult parturition, weakly offspring, or
other casualty. The first symptom of lambing is, that the ewe will
single off. She begins to “pain herself,”—to show externally the
throes of parturition; and, in more or less time, the first water will
come-a fine small bladder filled with a whitish serum. After this it
is quite possible she may again commence eating; the lamb comes no
more forward, and she may remain for hours a source of anxiety to
the shepherd lest all should not be right. By and by she again
retires ; a thicker bladder comes filled with a yellower liquid, and the
feet and head of the lamb either begin to be visible, or to be at least
within a short space of the external labia. If difficulty now take
place, mechanical assistance should be given ;-not violent pulling, but
gentle and firm assistance; and, in ordinary cases, this succeeds, and
the animal is safely delivered. When she is allowed to rise, the hand
may be put in front of the udder, and it will be easy to feel if
another lamb may be expected. In case there is, it is best not to
suckle the first lamb till the other is produced, or it will get an
undue share of the milk, and thus rob its less fortunate brother.
If, however, the first lamb be feeble, it is desirable to suckle it as
early as possible; otherwise it may be a source of considerable in-
convenience.
But parturition is not always a matter so easy. The lamb may
come either with only one foot, with the head without feet, or with
the hind legs only. The latter is a matter of less consequence than
the former cases. In any case, if the uterus be sufficiently expanded
no damage will take place; if not, there may be great difficulty. The
first effort should be to put the lamb right; a little gentle and judi-
cious putting back will sometimes enable the operator to effect the
object. In other cases, where the head is distinctly bent back, we
have known a noose put round the under jaw without the slightest
difficulty. A crooked-necked lamb will often be a source of difficulty.
It will be difficult to lamb; and when it is so it will often baffle all
efforts to make it suckle. A very judicious friend of ours, a success-
ful breeder of sheep, informs us that he makes a point of always
marking and putting off the mothers of every crooked or gye-
necked" lambs, and thus has very seldom any one in his flock,-
traceable possibly, when it does occur, to the tendency to that failing
in the male animals which he purchases.


DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES.
119
being smeared with a solution of sulphate of iron. He then ties the
other end of the sticks, and cuts off the testicle. In twelve hours
the sticks are removed by cutting the string, and all the vessels are
thoroughly cauterized. The mode has struck us as a great improve-
ment on the cautery, and it is certainly more elegant.
We now proceed to diseases of a less symptomatic character, and
the first and most dangerous is the Rot. On the causes and treatment
of this, volumes have been written; but whatever may be the ulti-
mate cause of the flukes in the liver, it seems to be quite clear that
drainage is fast banishing the rot out of the country. The main
feature of the disease is, that the solids of the body become gradually
watery and flaccid. It is, doubtless, owing to some water-grass,
and the peculiar state of the system is a favourite nidus in which
the fluke is generated,-its germ till then living in a normal state.
It has been said that a single feed of the grass will produce the
disease.
The best preventive to the disease is an allowance of plenty of
dry food, with salt ad libitum. We know a farmer, in Cleveland,
who saved his flock of Teeswaters in a rot year, which almost de-
nuded that valley of its sheep, without any other exception than his
own flock. They had constant access to the hay-stack, and so were
preserved amongst the general ruin. When the rot unhappily sets
in, it is by far the best to sell the whole of those which are at all fit
for the butcher for immediate slaughter.
The Sheep-pox was introduced into this country by the Continental
sheep, and is a disease very destructive to the flock, and highly in-
jurious to those animals which recover from it. Inoculation has been
recommended by Mr. Stanley Carr, and seems to have a tendency to
make the disease less virulent. Vaccination has also been adopted;
and in an extensive experiment only one-fifth of the flock, of 1,500
and more, escaped the disease by the precaution.
The Sturdy is another incurable disease, arising either from water
in the head, hydatids in the brain, or other disease of the latter
organ. As the fattest sheep are usually attacked, and as the disease
is incurable, the animal should at once be sent to be slaughtered; for
the mutton is not impaired in the slightest degree.
Diarrhea is a disease which sometimes becomes epidemic. It is
most common in hogs or young sheep, and is often caused by im-
proper food, as will be seen by our remarks on weaning lambs. It
generally arises, however, from rapid changes of food.
We hardly


INDEX.
123
Food, the proportionate qualities of,
consumed, 104, 105.
Foot-rot, disease of the, 120.
Foreign sheep, breeds of, 15 et seq. ;
mutton-producing breeds, 21 et seq.;
wool-producing breeds, 26; varieties
of, 41,
French sheep, characteristics of the,
42.
Mosaical sacrifices, the fat and rump
of sheep mentioned in the, 25.
Moutons de Picardie, 42.
Musmon, the domestic sheep sprung
from the domestication of this breed,
15; in what countries found, 15;
its characteristics, 16.
Mutton, the chief article of food in
this country, 14.
Mutton-producing sheep of foreign
countries, 21 ; epitomized outline of,
46; account of the, 59.
1
Nimroud sculptures indicate two dis-
tinct breeds, 18, 22.
Norfolk breed, characteristics of the,
67.
Gardner's turnip-cutter, 109.
Garget, a disease of the udder, 1!8.
Gestation, average period of, 97.
Gold-diggings in Australia, 39.
Grass lambs, 70.
Guilds of trade, establishment of, 83.
Hair, nature and properties of, 48.
Hardwick breed, account of the, 70.
Heath sheep, notices of the, 61.
Hleather-fed sheep, 62.
Highland sheep, account of the, 62.
Iceland sheep, characteristics of, 42,
43.
Overlanders, the name of the sheep-
farmers of Australia, 34.
Job, flock of, 17.
Parturition, 116; diseases attendant
on, 117.
Pasturage of Australia, 38.
Patriarchs, sheep of the, 17.
Persepolis, bas-reliefs of, representing
sheep, 22.
Persia, the sheep of, 19, 21, 22.
Persian hornless, of the fat-rumped
breed, 25.
Prices of sheep, in British history,
44, 45.
Puerperal fever, 118.
Kentish sheep, account of the, 50.
Kneading, peculiar to the treading of
sheep, 11.
Lambing season in Australia, 35.
Lambs, directions respecting, 69, 70;
weaning of, 98.
Lawes' experiment in feeding, 105,
106.
Leicesters, Old and New, character-
isties of the, 41; account of the
breed, 55, 72; crossing them with
the Southdown and other breeds,
Lincolnshire breed, account of the,
54.
Ram, on the choice of the, 89.
Rams, breeding, on the management
of, 95.
Rearing, practical directions for, 88
et seq.
92 et seq.
Romney Marsh breed, account of the,
50.
Rot, disease of, in Australia, 37;
causes and treatment of, 119.
Ryeland breed, account of the, 56.
Management of sheep, general instruc-
tions respecting the, 101 et seq.
Manufactures, woollen, prosperity of,
in England, 86.
Merinos, frequent attempts made to
introduce them into England, 31;
Mr. Sturgeon's success in rearing,
32; great success of breeding them
in Australia, 33; characteristics of
the, 40.
Spanish, history and character-
istics of the, 26, 27; mode of treat-
ing, 28.
Saxon, history of, 29 et seq.;
treatment of, 30.
Migrations of sheep, 42.
Mortality among sheep in Australia,
37.
Scab, disease of the, 120; in Australia,
37.
Scour, treatment of the, 100.
Sheep, its zoological classification, 9;
its general characteristics, 10 et seq.;
its courage when lambing, 13; sta-
tistics of, ib. ; its origin, 14; breeds
of foreign countries, 15 et seq. ;
mutton-producing breeds of, 21 et
seq. ; wool-producing breeds of, 26
et seq.; miscellaneous breeds, 40;
on the general management and fat-
tening of, 101 et seq.
British, history of the, 43 st
seq.
Sheep-farming of Australia, 33; the
three great drawbacks in, 37.


Date Due
есе
SMAR 24
MAR 13
into
the
MAY 1906
ma-
in
of,
per-
felt
im-
82.
eds,
DEF 7
1967
1490
5/14
26;
tory
seq. ;
30 et
stab-
82
9
"y of
the
royal
86.
tes.
thine
ct



400603
SF 375Milburn, M.M.
M63 The sheep and shep-
herding.
400603
SF375
M63
sty