Breeds of Sheep best adapted to different Localities. 433 



Timothy grass (P /ileum pratense), meadow fescue (Festuca pra- 

 tensis), meadow foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis), white and red 

 clovers, &c., the Leicester will be found to flourish; and if the 

 grasses consist in a great degree of timothy, meadow foxtail, and 

 cocksfoot, a still heavier animal, the long-wooUed sheep, may be 

 fattened profitably. 



I consider there are two causes which may be assigned for 

 the increasing adoption of Leicester sheep in districts where, 

 until a recent period, the Southdown knew no rival. One is the 

 gradually increasing practice of breaking up down-land and sandy 

 pastures in the south of England, for the purpose of converting 

 the same into arable cultivation, and the adoption of turnip-hus- 

 bandry. For this description of husbandry I think it will be 

 conceded that the Leicester has no rival ; added to which is the 

 circumstance of the greater annual return for wool made by 

 Leicesters, in consequence of the great change which has taken 

 place in the relative prices of short and long wool. Our long 

 wools, for combing, have ever stood unrivalled. Besides its longer 

 staple (foreign wool being about 5 inches, whilst Lincolnshire is 

 8 inches, sometimes 9 or 10 inches in length), its much stronger 

 and more endurable fibre, has caused the foreign demand for 

 long wool to continue after the call for fine felting wool has 

 ceased. The French buy a considerable quantity of wool in 

 Ireland, for the purpose of manufacturing their mixed stuff 

 fabrics, the soft quality and long staple of the superior kinds of 

 Irish sheep rendering the wool well adapted for the purposes 

 intended, but which would fall infinitely inferior to such a wool 

 as we presume might be engrafted on the Southdowns. In the 

 opinion that a superior combing wool might be produced or 

 engrafted on one or more of our native stocks, I am happy in 

 having to record that the late Lord Western, than whom no man 

 paid greater attention to the growth of fine wools, concurred in 

 opinion, for he observed in a letter to the late Earl Spencer : — 

 '' But I am of opinion that we should never stand still, but rather be 

 always aiming at new objects ; and I sincerely think that that for which I 

 am now striving is not absolutely Utopian. There is plenty of room for 

 the introduction of another breed of animals without trenching upon or 

 superseding in any way those which are valuable and now in existence. 

 My object then may be familiarly stated to be the placing merino wool 

 upon a Leicester carcase, perhaps not exactly resembling the short finest 

 clothing wool of Saxony, but a fine combing wool superior to any that 

 has heretofore been grown." 



In continuation, he further j ustly adds— 



" I look upon what is commonly called a Southdown to be now a very 

 different animal from the little pure Southdown of fifty years ago." 



I shall only make a few brief remarks respecting the Rye- 

 lands, the Wicklow, Kerry, <&c., sheep, as these are the only true 



