PAMPERING SHEEP. 197 



improvements. For example, size cannot be increased, nor 

 even kept up without abundant feed. The highest bred 

 Short -Horn dwindles rapidly in size in each succeeding 

 generation however strong the individual and family 

 tendency to size if put on thin upland pasturage and fed 

 only hay in winter. I do not suppose that Mr. Ellman could 

 ever have raised the flat rib of the unimproved South Down 

 to its present almost horizontal spring from the back-bone, 

 had he suifered his sheep to remain ill -fed and empty 

 because, while it is true that the viscera adapt their size to 

 the inclosing structures, it is equally true that the bony and 

 muscular inclosing structures adapt their size and shape to the 

 viscera. Whatever we may do, nature insists on and enforces 

 harmony ! 



Good keep may be pronounced necessary to improvement 

 in other particulars : but while the fire warms and cheers and 

 strengthens, the conflagration destroys ! Knaves are generally 

 very much puzzled to ascertain, in all such cases, where the 

 good agency ends and the bad one begins. Men of common 

 sense, common experience, and common honesty, labor under 

 no such difficulties. They can decide at once between good 

 keep and destructive pampering. 



