332 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



demand in the various manufactures of the country ; and mutton 

 and lamb make up an extraordinary portion of the food of the 

 inhabitants. 



Size, thrift or disposition to fatten, hardihood, early maturity, 

 prolificness, quantity and quality of wool, are matters of great 

 consideration in these animals. It cannot be said that all these 

 properties have been as yet combined, in the highest degree, in 

 any one kind of sheep ; perhaps such a combination is impossi 

 ble ; but the efforts for the improvement of the different races, 

 and, in several instances, the success of those efforts, have been 

 as remarkable as in the improvement of neat stock. 



There are no fine-wooled sheep in Great Britain. The fine- 

 wooled sheep of Spain and Saxony have not size enough to 

 meet the demands of the markets for mutton : at least, this is the 

 prevalent impression. Perhaps the merino blood might be en 

 grafted into their flocks, to a certain extent, with great advantage ; 

 but they fear the diminution of size. Size and fatness are the 

 principal objects of the British farmer ; and, in the latter qual 

 ity, it would be undesirable to attempt any further advance. 

 The fatness of much of their mutton now renders it almost 

 uneatable. 



I do not propose to give a particular account of the different 

 kinds of British sheep, but shall speak only generally, with the 

 exception of the two prominent breeds. 



(1.) Various Breeds. The Lincolnshire, the Cotswold, the 

 Dorsetshire, the Gloucestershire, the Oxfordshire sheep, arc 

 large, coarse-wooled, and coarse-boned sheep, which have their 

 partisans in particular districts, and are much crossed and in 

 termixed with others, but have not attained the enviable dis 

 tinction of being, if I may be allowed the term, cultivated and 

 improved, so as to form a distinct and extensively popular race. 

 Their yield of wool is large, averaging six or seven pounds to a 

 fleece, and in some instances more, and of variable price, depend 

 ent, of course, upon the caprices of the market, but, in such a 

 country as this, always in demand for coarse fabrics. Some of 

 these sheep, the Lincolnshire in particular, attain to an enormous 

 size. I have seen some which, it was calculated, would weigh, 

 when dressed, above seventy pounds per quarter, the farmer who 

 was feeding them having already killed some which had reached 



