CATTLE AND SHEEP. 25 



persevering Scotchmen, the black-faces have attained a 

 consistency and an uniformity which does not exist in 

 England ; the old Norfolk is their nearest English repre- 

 sentative. The Cheviots, also, have much improved by 

 their migration to the north ; they have also acquired con- 

 siderable consistency, and we doubt whether it has been 

 judicious to tamper with it by the introduction of Leicester 

 blood. A white-faced horned sheep, which inhabits a 

 moorland district called the Derbyshire Woodlands, the 

 old Cambridgeshire, and a Dorsetshire sheep, bear to each 

 other a marked resemblance. The Southdown, far the most 

 comely of our English sheep, has about him several of the 

 characteristics of an old race. But how gat he without 

 his horns ? In agriculture the Southdowns are invaluable. 

 Grazing the shortest and driest pastures bearing, from 

 their hardihood and from the closeness of their fleece, con- 

 finement on a claggy lair, either in the turnip-field or in 

 the fold, better than any of their congeners they are not 

 only of more general utility to the mixed farmer, but they 

 also yield a supply of mutton considerably above the average 

 in quality. The black-faced Shropshire ewe is a vulgarized 

 Southdown, which has acquired size and has lost quality. 

 We hear that a big Cotswold sheep is studying refinement, 

 and trying to force himself into favour. But of all the 

 polled and white-faced sorts, the New Leicester, though 

 he may of late have somewhat declined in favour, remains 

 still far the most important. With no pretensions to be a 

 race, they have become, beyond all dispute, a very distinct 

 breed. The New Leicester tup, in his best form, has a 

 smart head, is long and low, with a tabular back, with wide 

 rumps, " thick," as graziers say, " through the heart of 

 him," with wonderfully covered sides and shoulders, but 

 very interior to the Southdown in his legs of mutton. The 

 colliers in the north say that " a little fat mutton makes 

 a many fat potatoes." To furnish that mutton is the voca- 

 tion of the New Leicester, and he performs it worthily. 

 He is mutton food for the million ; and sincerely we hope 



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