Breeds of Sheep best adapted to different Localities. 437 



in the carcase, and the fleece not being quite so heavy, but pos- 

 sessing a much finer staple, the coarser wool of the Cotswold 

 sheep being- very probably attributable to the coarser herbage on 

 the wet " speiDij^'' pastures of the Cotswold Hills, for which 

 description of places the Cotswold is the best adapted as com- 

 pared with all other breeds of large sheep : it is only upon hills 

 not exceeding 900 feet in perpendicular height above the level of 

 the sea that the Cotswold sheep will flourish; and it must also 

 be remembered that although they are cold and wet, yet they are 

 covered with a soil otherwise tolerably rich, and yielding a con- 

 siderable quantity of rough coarse herbage, greatly superior to 

 that found on the Grampians, Cheviots, and hills of Cumber- 

 land, Westmoreland, &c., on which the Cotswold sheep would 

 starve. Crosses of the Cotswold with the Leicester have answered 

 exceedingly well in some places, and many of the carefully bred 

 Cots wolds are scarcely to be excelled by any breed in England : 

 for wet coarse pasture no large sheep is so well adapted as the 

 Cotswold. 



I have now taken a somewhat extensive review of the most 

 widely diffused breeds of sheep which occupy all our level 

 grounds and downs ; we are therefore now about to enter on a 

 review of sheep adapted to our more elevated and less fertile 

 mountains. How the Cheviot came to be classed amongst short- 

 woolled sheep by Sir John Sinclair and others is to me inex- 

 plicable, except from the circumstance that people were content 

 to use a coarser cloth formerly than at the present day : that the 

 staple of the wool has been lengthened, and the wool otherwise 

 become coarser, I am prepared to admit, but certainly not to the 

 extent that the fleece has been changed from a short felting wool 

 to a combing quality. The Cheviot, when carefully bred, is a 

 handsome compact sheep, not quite so " leggy " as the Cotswold 

 and Yorkshire sheep, notwithstanding which they are an active 

 race, are famous foragers, and withstand the vicissitudes of the 

 weather exceedingly well, more so than any of the breeds pre- 

 viously noticed. They are particularly adapted to that class of 

 hills from which they derive their name, and also to an extensive 

 range of mountains which are to be found more or less extended 

 over the whole of the Lowlands of Scotland. These hills princi- 

 pally consist of the upper silurian rocks (a large part of them 

 argillaceous), limestone, and Plutonic rocks, the decomposition of 

 which has produced a soil of tolerably fertile quality, but only 

 thinly spread over the subjacent rocks and boulders, and much 

 intermixed with stones ; a great quantity of heathy bogs and 

 moorysoil are also to be found on these hills. Arable cultivation, 

 on many accounts, is wholly out of the question ; on places such 

 as described, elevated from 800 to 1500 feet above the level of 



VOL. X. 2 G 



