LECTURE XVII 



LEICESTERS. 



Origin, History, and Development. 



The Leicester belongs to the long-wooled class of sheep, 

 along with the Lincoln and Cotswold, all of which are of 

 English origin. It is not because it belongs to this class that 

 we study it before all others, nor is it because this breed 

 can claim priority in point of age over others, but it is be- 

 cause of the improvement that has been effected by means of 

 it upon almost all other breeds and because it is the result 

 of the pioneer work of Bakewell in animal breeding. 



All students are interested in pioneer work. Who has 

 not read with interest the story of pioneer days in the central 

 west? So it is that we turn with interest and not without 

 profit to the pioneer work of Robt. Bakewell, whose genius 

 and foresight enabled him to plan and carry out the improve- 

 ment of the cart-horse, beef cattle and mutton sheep to the 

 benefit of not only himself, but of his country and all other 

 countries engaged in the breeding and rearing of live stock. 



Robert Bakewell was a farmer, whose home was at Dishley, 

 in Leicestershire, a county in about the central part of Eng- 

 land, where the raising and feeding of live stock was the 

 principal occupation of his co-workers. He early conceived 

 the idea that the sheep, horses, and cattle of that district 

 could be improved so as to serve the purposes of the farmers 

 t3 a much greater extent than they were doing at that time, 

 an 1 it was with this end in view that he began his operation 

 with Leicester sheep in the year of 1755. Very little is known 

 regarding his methods, but this much is known: that the 

 merit of his work consisted in his realizing the fact that the 

 properties of parents may be transmitted to their offspring 

 until a type is fixed; also in his power of discerning by an 

 animal's external form and quality that it possessed the 



205 



