ON BREEDING AND REARING ANIMALS. 47 



and refuse from them. By that slow and trouble- 

 some process, he found which were the best of 

 the different sorts he tried. When he had done 

 this, such was the wayward prejudice of breed- 

 ers in that day, they would not have them, and 

 it was with difficulty he could prevail on any 

 one to try them ; the prevailing opinion was, 

 too little, too little. Where they were tried, 

 wonders were wrought; they made great im- 

 provement wherever they went, and no other 

 sheep would stand in competition with them. 

 Then his sheep were suited to poor land, a hard 

 common, the most so of any sheep. There are 

 people now living who heard Mr. Bakewell say, 

 that I, with my poor land, did him more credit 

 than any man in the three kingdoms. But the 

 great man mistook the effect for the cause ; he 

 knew what constituted a pleasing form, and what 

 was a good quality, but his capacious mind was 

 never led to consider what it was that gave the 

 animal strength of stamina ; if he had known it, 

 surely he would have communicated it to some 

 one, nor would he ever have departed from it. 

 He never thought how he procured it, or how 

 he lost it ; but when he had lost it, his sheep 

 were like Sampson when he had lost his hair 

 and became as another man. When he had lost 

 sterling worth, then he began to enquire after 



