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XXI. — On the Breeds of Sheep best adapted to different Lo- 

 calities. By T. Rowland SON. 

 Prize Essay. 



Profit being the ultimate object of the farmer, it is necessary, in 

 considering this subject, to rev^iew other circumstances than the 

 mere fact of which breed will produce the most meat on a given 

 quantity and quality of herbage, as sheep, unlike other animals 

 bred by the farmer, yield a certain amount of annual revenue by 

 the sale of their fleece, prior to their final disposal to the 

 butcher. Wool, and in some instances the sale of lambs, form 

 prominent items in the profits derivable from sheep farms: these 

 circumstances, combined with the fact of different breeds being 

 more suited to one locality than another — respect being had to 

 climate and herbage — render the solution of this question one of 

 the most difficult, whilst at the same time it is one of the most 

 important problems connected with the science of agriculture. In 

 endeavouring to solve this complicated subject, it will be expe- 

 dient to separate the returns which may fairly be anticipated from 

 wool, meat, and lambs into separate heads, prior to summing up 

 the whole. There are certain districts, however, where the ques- 

 tion of wool may fairly be set aside, long experience having 

 proved that only particular species of sheep are adapted to subsist 

 on the dreary wastes where such breeds are only found : the 

 question in such places being not as to the return which may be 

 derived from wool, but will the animals live at all ; in these cases 

 the wool forms a very secondary consideration. Notwithstanding 

 the character of the herbage and climate found on the wide 

 spreading moors and craggy hill tops of North and South Wales, 

 Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, the Highlands and West- 

 ern Islands of Scotland, Wicklow, Kerry, Mayo, and Galway in 

 Ireland, is much alike, the breeds are as dissimilar as the countries 

 named are geographically distant, several of which are greatly 

 inferior to others living under like conditions, which point will be 

 more dwelt upon in its proper place ; we shall now proceed to 

 investigate the various bearings which the quantity and quality of 

 the wool of different breeds of sheep have upon the profits of the 

 sheep-farmer. 



Wool has for centuries been esteemed our staple production, 

 and was the original source of our greatest manufacture,* em- 

 blematical of which the Lord High Chancellor's seat in the 



* 111 the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. flourished at Newbury, in Berkshire, 

 John Winchcomb, commonly known as Jack of Newbury one of the greatest clothiers 

 that ever existed in England prior to the use of the steam-engine in forming textile 

 fabrics. He kept 100 looms in his house; and in the expedition to Flodden Field, 

 marched 100 of his own men, armed and clothed at his own expense, 

 VOL. X. 2 F 



