318 REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 



been bestowed upon them by individual flockmasters, with a 

 view of improving the breed, and the most gratifying success 

 has attended their efforts. Mr James Brydon, formerly in 

 Moodlaw, has earned a reputation as a breeder of Cheviots 

 second to no breeder of any class of stock in any part of the 

 kingdom. The following gentlemen have of late frequently been 

 distinguished at national and local shows for the purity and 

 superiority of their animals belonging to this breed, viz., 

 Messrs Borthwick, Hopsrigg ; Carruthers, Kirkhill ; Johnstone, 

 Capplegill. All these gentlemen have had biennial sales (by 

 auction) of rams, at Beattock, Langholm, and other central and 

 accessible localities, at which extremely high prices have been 

 obtained for many animals, and the average of the whole exposed 

 has always been very high. These have been dispersed not only 

 throughout the higher parts of Dumfriesshire, but also over all 

 parts of Scotland where Cheviot sheep are kept, and they have 

 been the means of effecting a marked improvement in the quality 

 of this valuable breed of sheep. 



The hill pastures of Dumfriesshire, on which Cheviot and Black- 

 faced sheep are grazed, are stocked, on an average, at the rate of 

 one ewe for a little less than two imperial acres. The pecuniary 

 return from a Cheviot ewe varies from year to year as the 

 price of lambs and wool fluctuates in the market. The progeny are 

 not kept until they are three years old, as is done in the High- 

 lands, but are sold when lambs. The annual sale of lambs in 

 August runs from 450 to 500 for every 1000 ewes kept, of which 

 three-fourths are wedder lambs, and the remainder small ewe 

 lambs. From 130 to 150 old ewes are also sold each year, the 

 number of ewes and lambs varying according to the healthiness 

 of the farm and the season. These sales, with the price of the 

 wool varying from 3 to 3 J lbs. (washed) for each sheep, constitute 

 the whole revenue derived from the Cheviot sheep-farm. 



Almost all the Cheviot ewes that are kept on the arable farms, 

 are the draft five and six year-old ewes from the hill stocks. They 

 are brought to the low lands about the beginning of October ; and 

 half-bred lambs (Cheviot and Leicester) having been reared from 

 them, they are fattened upon grass and turnips, and generally 

 sold before the Christmas of the following year. 



Blackfaced sheep are also kept to some extent on some of the 

 mountain pastures of Dumfriesshire. Indeed, during the earlier 

 part of last century, this hardy breed was almost the only 

 kind of sheep kept on the higher sheep-walks. But in the end 

 of last century, the Cheviot breed had spread over the eastern 

 portion of Dumfriesshire, supplanting the Blackfaced on the 

 hills in this as in other counties. The extent of the encroach- 

 ments which the Cheviots had made in 1812 on the walks of the 

 Blackfaced is definitely recorded by Dr Singer, who says that 



