214 THE BLACKFACED BREED OF SHEEP. 



to be met with in the south of Scotland. A writer, in describ- 

 ing a tour from Land's End to John o' Groats, in 1864, made the 

 following reference to the upper reaches of Strathspey, in which 

 the counties of Perth, Banff, and Inverness all join :— 



" The sheep in this region are chiefly the old Scotch breed, 

 with curling horns and crooked faces and legs, such as are 

 represented in old pictures. The black seems to be spattered 

 upon them, and looks as if the heather would rub it off. The 

 wool is long and coarse, giving them a goat-like appearance. 

 They seem to predominate over any other breed in this part of 

 the country, yet not necessarily nor advantageously. A large 

 sheep farmer from England was staying at the inn, with whom 

 I had much conversation on the subject. He said the Cheviots 

 w^ere equally adapted to the Highlands, and thought they 

 would ultimately supplant the blackfaces. Although he lived 

 in Northumberland, full two hundred miles to the south, he had 

 rented a large sheep walk or mountain farm in the Western 

 Highlands, and had come to this district to buy or hire another 

 tract. He kept about 4000 sheep, and intended to introduce 

 the Cheviots upon these Scotch holdings, as their bodies were 

 much heavier, and their wool worth nearly double that of tlie 

 old backfaced breed. Sheep are the principal source of wealth 

 in the whole of the north and west of Scotland. I was told 

 that sometimes a flock of 20,000 is owned by one man. The 

 lands on which they are pastured will not rent above one or 

 two English shillings per acre ; and a flock even of 1000 

 requires a vast range, as may be indicated by the reply of a 

 Scotch farmer to an English one, on being asked by the latter 

 one, ' How many sheep do you allow to the acre ? ' ' Ah mon,' 

 was the answer, ' that's nae the way we counts in the High- 

 lands ; its how monie acres to the sheep ! ' " 



Cheviots were then, as already indicated, displacing the High- 

 land breed in many parts of Britain, but since that time a very 

 material change has taken place. Even the green mantled hills 

 of the south are being more extensively put under blackfaces 

 every year. "From the time of King James down to the year 

 1785," says Hogg, in his Statistics of the County of Selkirk, " the 

 blackfaced or forest breed continued to be the sole breed of 

 sheep reared in this district; and happy had it been for the 

 inhabitants had no other been introduced to this day." The 

 latter clause of Mr Hogg's remarks will, we have no doubt, be 

 very freely re-echoed by many flockowners who have had the 

 disagreeable experience of changing stocks, as the maxim of 

 supply and demand required. A writer on the subject, in the 

 year 1844, states that in the south of Scotland " Lord Napier 

 made strenuous and successful exertions to arouse and direct 

 the solicitude of sheep farmers to the improvement of the 



