376 Mountain Breeds of Sheep. 



The large proportion of lean flesh makes their mutton very 

 popular with the miners, who are a great band round Tavistock 

 and earn very good wages. Living so much underground makes 

 them rather fastidious in their appetites, and fat meat is their 

 abomination. 



Very little is done with dips ; and the first Wednesday after 

 Midsummer is the commencement of shearing time. The wool 

 is always sold in the yolk or grease. Washed wool is one-fourth 

 dearer, but those who tried washing considered that it did not 

 pay and returned to the old system. The lambs are always shorn, 

 and although some of them have been weaned a month before, 

 the average is nearly 4 lbs. Even when it has been shorn as a 

 lamb, a hogg has been known to have an 18-inch staple, but the 

 average of a well-bred lowland flock will not exceed 9 inches. 

 Even after nursing a lamb, the ewes, if they have been well kept, 

 can clip lOlbs. ; and between two and four, a good wether will 

 reach as high as 14 lbs. on the Moor, and 2 lbs. more on the farms. 

 An eminent prize-winning flock-master showed us his last year's 

 wool account, which made up 241)0 lbs. at Is. (Jd. per lb. from 182 

 sheep and 109 lambs, and there have been years when he has had 

 it heavier. Tups with very high keep have reached 28 lbs. and 

 29 lbs. in the yolk, and one cut 25 lbs. in two successive years. 

 The prize fleeces at Plymouth last July weighed 13 lbs. after 

 they were washed, and were from highly-fed tups of fifteen 

 months old. 



' We have thus sketched out the peculiar merits, points, and 

 management of the seven leading breeds of mountain sheep, and 

 shown in what the increased cross-breeding consists, Avhere and 

 with what view it has been pursued, and why it has failed or been 

 abandoned. On the whole, except to a slight extent in North 

 Wales and on Exmoor, it has only been adopted to breed fat lambs, 

 and wethers " nearer the shambles," and not to correct bad points 

 or enlarge the size of the original breed of the country. Even 

 then the change has only been effected at some sacrifice. The 

 Cumberland and Westmoreland farmers may perhaps be accused 

 of clinging to their own old sort, with the same desperate tenacity 

 that made the shepherds of Ettrick Forest rave, even in their death 

 throes, against the Cheviots, as " puir white-faced shil pit things," 

 which " wanted mair waiting on than ony fine leddy." Still the 

 mere settlement for a time, " beyond which the memory of man 

 runneth not to the contrary," would not suffice to keep any breed 

 of sheep in possession of a district, unless it were found to answer 

 best under the peculiar local conditions of nature as to pasture 

 and climate. Tradition, however deep its taproot may be, has 

 very little chance in this thrusting age, when, in Emerson's words. 



