396 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE "ESTABLISHED BREEDS" OF SHEEP. 



Great bodies, like great minds, sometimes clash. In 

 the first week of the new year the Committee of the 

 London Farmers' Club were sending down a request to 

 Mr. Charles Howard that he would give them an open- 

 ino- for a discussion on the merits of pure and cross- 

 bred sheep. At just about the same time Mr. Spooner, 

 of Eling, must have been revising the proof-sheets of 

 his paper on cross-breeding fur the new number of the 

 Koyai Agricultural Society's Journal. There was no 

 previous consultation or arrangement whatever over 

 such a coinci<ienc;e. The two Associations stand a 

 little too much in their own "rights " for this ; not 

 that either will in any ways sufilr from the mutual 

 support and corroboiation thus accidentally arrived at. 

 On the contrary, Mr. Spooner's able essay came as a 

 most appropriate prolo'iue to the meetinir at the 

 Farmers' Club; while Mr. Howard's equally excel- 

 lent and practical address is the best possible commen- 

 tary on the paper of his precursor. One, as we see 

 now, would have been scarcely complete without the 

 other ; and if ever these two august assemblies were to 

 seek a fitting opportunity to shake hands and make 

 friends, they could never find a better one than over 

 these congenial productions. 



It is noticeable to see how the champions of their 

 several societies travelled on to the same conclusions. 

 Mr. Howard, of course, was named by the Club as 

 a well-known breeder and exhibitor of a certain 

 description of sheep ; and the very wording of his 

 question made his course a tolerably obvious one. Mr. 

 Spooner, on the other hand, is looked upon at the great 

 meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society rather more 

 as an authority for horses than sheep ; while his theme, 

 '' on cross-breeding" simply , (left the treatment of it open 

 enough. It might have turned on the difi'erent crosses 

 for horses, by no means an uninviting section of the 

 subject; or of cattle, Shortliorns and Herefords, 

 Highlanders and Shorthorns, and so on; or even of 

 pigs, Chinese and English, Neapolitan and English, or 

 large and small. Mr. Spooner, however, dismisses all 

 these, even his favoui'ite, the horse, very summarily ; 

 and goes on to say, that in its first importance, cross- 

 breeding with him means very much what it does with 

 Mr. Howard, the cross-breeding of sheep. This, in fact, 

 is one of the great features of modern husbandry. 

 Flocks of pure-bred sheep, one man will tell you, have 

 their chiet value for crossing ; and another at his elbow 

 shall vehemently assure you there is now no such 

 thing as a pure-bred-sheep in the country. Mr. 

 Robert Smith, with characteristic caution, gpeaks 

 of the leading varieties as " established breeds." And 

 then straightway every ram breeder declares his own 

 to be an established breed. The Shropshires long 

 maintained they were, and at length their claim is re- 

 cognized. But, of course, no sooner is this allowed 

 than the Hampshires, the Oxford Downs, and other 

 long-wools and short-wools, all demand equally dis- 

 tinctive rank. It has been said that it takes twenty 

 years to " make" any certain sort of sheep. That is, 

 within such a period the produce must be entirely from 

 the same description ofanimals,whateverthey may have 

 been crossed up to previous, and the proper foundation 

 having been once deter mint d upon. Here is manifestly 

 the great difficulty. Be it an ox, a sheep, or a pig, 

 there is nothing more profitable than a first cross, if 

 you only intend to sell it and stop there. Or, as is the 

 common practice, to be continually repeating the 



process. But ambitious spirits get beyond this, and 

 as Bakewell improved the Leicester, and Jonas Webb 

 the Southdown, so would others permanently amend 

 the native breeds of their own districts. 



There is all proper precedent for so kudablea desire. 

 Mr. Howard even tells us that, " Bakewell died, and 

 his secrt-t was buried with him ; but there is very little 

 doubt the Leicesters are the result of a cross of the va- 

 rious long-woolled breeds in his o^vn immediate locality, 

 and which he succeeded in turning to good account." 

 Mr. Spooner, again, says, " The Southdown is, per- 

 haps, one of the purest breeds we have. No one asserts 

 that the immense improvement of this breed by EUman 

 was due to any crossing; whether the increased size 

 and further improvement which it has received in 

 other counties have been effected in all cases 

 without a cross of any kind, may be in the minds 

 of some a matter of doubt." It is very certain 

 that some thirty years since there was a breed of large 

 useful but coarse short-woolled sheep in Sussex, that 

 the Ellmans would never admit to be Southdowns, but 

 that strangers were wont to fancy nevertheless. A Mr. 

 Ridge was especially famous for them, and his black- 

 faces still brijak out occasionally amongst the im- 

 proved Southdowns. In fact, the whole tenor of what 

 was said at the Farmers' Club, as well as in what 

 has been written in the Journal of the Agricultural 

 Society, go to show that our great successes in sheep- 

 breeding are traceable to judicious crosses, " the secret" 

 in the first instance having generally been tolerably well 

 kept. Our most recent of all authorities, Mr. Tulliver, 

 in the new novel of The Mill on the Floss, says that 

 " the worst on't with the crossing of breeds is that you 

 never can justly calkilate what'U come on't." But 

 with such established sorts as the Hampshires, Oxfords, 

 and Shropshires, the good miller will soon stand alone. 

 Still it is only right and fair to offer any evidence to 

 the contrary, and well as Messrs. Howard and Spooner 

 pull together, the discussion mayyet warm up. The agri- 

 cultural authority, indeed, of the Economist hsi?, already 

 drawn out no less a man than Mr. Valentine Barford. 

 His letter appears in reply to some strictures on his 

 system, as passed in a notice of Mr. Spooner's paper. It 

 tells so well here that we might almost take it as from 

 a speech in the Monday evening's debate at the Club. 

 Mr. Barford says : — " Half a century of experience has 

 convinced me, where two nearly-related animals are 

 true in form, sound in constitution, and I am sure that 

 they have no hereditary tendency to disease, in-and-in 

 breeding does not induce degeneracy, and therefore I 

 have no hesitation in coupling them. In fact, I think 

 relationship is a consideration of much less importance 

 than form and constitution. Nor do I ' neglect the 

 advantages offered to me' by my fellow-breeders 

 MERELY ' for the sake of preserving purity of descent' 

 (this being, as I have just said, when not combined 

 with purity of form, of no value at all, but rather 

 the reverse), but because I doubt whether they are 

 advantages. At one period of my life, from about the 

 years 1812 to 1825, I was anxious to improve my 

 flock, if possible, by the introduction of fresh blood; 

 and for this purpose I inspected, I believe, every flock 

 of new Leicesters then in any repute, but (I say it 

 without any wish to depreciate others) I could not find 

 one whose form and quality I thought equal or at least 

 superior to my own, and so I became an in-and-in 

 breeder, if you call it so, not so much from choice as 



