KERRY HILL BREED 563 



tan faces, with legs to match." The wool on the body was fine, 

 but so very coarse below that it was always separated from the 

 fleece and sold at a lower price. After the enclosure of the 

 farms by the proprietors, especially near Kerry Pole, 1 many 

 tenants bent on improving their flocks went, between 1840 

 and 1850, to Knighton Fair to buy rams "at from i t ics. 

 up to the extravagant price of 3" The concurrent 

 extension of root cultivation and a general improvement of 

 agricultural practice led to " a notable improvement of Kerry 

 Hill sheep, as somewhat similar circumstances had led to 

 the development of the Southdown breed (p. 602). From 

 about 1855 Kerry farmers ceased to go to Knighton for 

 their stock rams." They could do better by exchanging 

 rams among their own flocks ; and soon the farmers from 

 about Knighton came to Kerry for their rams and paid 

 much higher prices. Thus the " Clun Forest sheep with the 

 slightest possible amount of cross, and that only of the 

 Shropshire," was used to improve the Kerry Hill sheep, which 

 " took about twenty-five years to evolve," and, in turn, the 

 Kerry Hill sheep was meanwhile drawn upon for the 

 regeneration of the Radnor breed in the Knighton district. 

 It is claimed "that the beautiful and distinctive speckled 

 faces of these sheep have been retained and increased by 

 selection rather than by crossing from 1840," and the 

 hardiness of certain strains of this improved breed points 

 to the presumption being correct. The Kerry Hill sheep has 

 now a good claim to be considered a distinct breed, although 

 it has no longer any right to be regarded as a Hill or Mountain 

 sheep in the sense that it can live all the year round on high 

 exposed places without being hand-fed on roots and hay. 



Professor D. D. Williams, in the Farmer and Stock 

 Breeders' Year Book, 1907, says : "The chief characteristics 2 

 of the breed at the present time are speckled or mottled 

 face and legs [black and white, not too black], compact body, 



1 In estate improvement special credit is due to the late John Naylor, 

 who, following the object-lesson of a previous owner, Wm. B. Pugh, during 

 a period of thirty years on the Brynllywarch estate, took a leading part 

 in fencing the hill pastures, draining the lowlands, and providing the 

 buildings necessary for an improved system of farming. Those examples 

 were followed by David Davies, M.P., on Gwernygoe estate, Edward 

 Davies, of Plasdinam, and others. 



2 Fully detailed in vol. v. of the Flock Book of Kerry Hill Sheep, 1905. 



