o 



08 [ASSEMELY 



Cheviot. The Leicester breed of sheep may in truth be said to 

 have attained a world-wide celebrity, and if its originator had 

 affected no other improvement, this wouJd have secured to his 

 name perpetual honors. 



But how did Bakewell produce these sheep ? It is unfortunate 

 that we hRve no record of his proceedings from his own hand : 

 but there are some authorities who throw light on the subject. 

 Pitt, in his " survey of Leicestershire " has embodied much val- 

 uable imformation on this point, he says : 



'• Mr. Ferryman, who has conversed with many of Mr. Bake- 

 weli's CO temporaries, states that he had formed in his own mind 

 an ideal perfection, which he endeavored to realize ; and that 

 with this view, he with unwearied perseverance, and at some- 

 thing more than a market price, selected from the flocks around 

 him such ewes as possessed those points which were most likely 

 to produce the animal he wished for." (page 249.) 



The same authority States that some of the sheep he alludes 

 to, were the descendants of some which, several years before, 

 had been brought from a section of Yorkshire and crossed with 

 the common sheep of Leicestershire. Jobbers were also in the 

 habit of going to the Wolds to purchase sheep, and Mr. Bakewell, 

 it is said, " engaged these jobbers noi to offer their sheep till he 

 had seen, and taken out such as he thought would serve his own 

 purpose. From these droves, or from flocks so bred in his neigh- 

 borhood, and probably from a cross with the large long wooled 

 Lincolnshire, he bred his first short-legged, square formed sheep. 



" Animated by his early success, he still wxnt on breeding 

 from his own, or crossing icith any others that he judged most like- 

 ly to bring his own nearest to his idea of perfection ; by which 

 means, and ( in the opinion of one of the oldest breeders in the 

 county,) by a cross with the Durham sheep, by slow degrees he 

 produced a form against wiiich he believed no possible objection 

 Could be raised." ( Page 250.) 



Dickson in his late work* says: " Mr. Bakewell was ever on the 

 alert in picking up any sheep which he considered would improve 

 his own stock. It is said that when visiting an eminent breeder 



« * Breeding of live stock, by James Dickson, Edinburgh, 1851. 



