COUNTIES OF EDINBUEGH AXD LINLITHGOW. 39 



10th of July, and regular dipping constitutes a part of the suc- 

 cessful management. The cast ewes are sold into England at 

 six years of age. Tups from this flock realise as far as L.55; 

 generally making as far as L.13 to L.lo per head on the 

 average when disposed of at the Lothian Eam Sales. Mr 

 Aitken, Listonshiels, has had a fine flock of blackfaces for 

 over twenty years. The sheep are summered on the high 

 parts of the farm and wintered on the lower pastures. No 

 food is given except a little hay in case of a snowstorm oc- 

 curring. Last year (1875) 40 rams from the flock averaged 

 L.9, 6s. 4Jd., the highest price being L.3G. Mr Gray, Harper- 

 rigg has had blackfaced sheep ov^er twenty years. No hand- 

 feeding is practised. The fiock numbers 500, the ewes being 

 kept until five crops of ]ambs are taken, and are then re- 

 placed by gimmers. Mr Currie has established a nice flock of 

 blackfaced sheep at Yorkston, in the Gorebridge district. Ha)' 

 is the only extra food given, and that only in a snowstorm. Mr 

 Archibald M' Vicar, Woodend, Linlithgow, keeps 500 to 600 

 blackfaced ewes, and breeds cross lambs chiefly by Leicestei- 

 tups. lu most respects the management is similar to that of 

 many of the Mid-Lothian breeders. Of AVest Lothian, generally, 

 we may say, that few blackfaced flocks are kept from which rams 

 are bred for the Lothian Ram Sales ; indeed, a great many farmers 

 breed crosses only for feeding purposes, except perhaps a few 

 pure-breds to fiU the places of the draft ewes. 



Cheviots. — In many parts of Scotland the Cheviot race has 

 supplanted the blackfaces. This type occupies in part the high- 

 land and in part the lowland country; Cheviots may, therefore 

 be described as an intermediate race between the small, fell, or 

 hill descriptions and the larger animals of the plains. They 

 pasture on the hill in smnmer, and are brought down into the 

 fields in winter and kept on foggage or old pasture. This breed 

 is" the most hardy of all the whitefaced varieties. The original 

 race, which cropped the herbage of the Cheviot Hills (whence 

 they derive their name), are described as having been small in 

 size, light in bone, and poor in wool, but having a hardy consti- 

 tution. Their heads and legs exhibited, for the most part, a slight 

 tinge of brown. Altogether, the breed bore little resemblance to 

 the finely proportioned animaly which represent the type of the 

 present day. About 100 years ago the race of improvement 

 began, and for at least three-quarters of a century the Cheviot 

 has been gradually encroaching on the domain of the blackface, 

 from its origimd home on the Cheviot Hills as fur north as John 

 o'Groats, within a stone's cast of which we have seen a s])lendid 

 flock of this type feeding. Jn the counties under notice this has 

 also been going on to a certuiu extent; what the proportions of 

 each breed now are is a question dillicult to answer. The man- 



