178 STOCKBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 



small men who had rights of common, or had acquired them from 

 commoners, drove their flocks from open-field to open-field, folding 

 them on the fallow lands of the \allage farm and receiving from 

 the occupiers of the fallows Is. a week per score or leave to graze 

 on the commons during some part of the winter. Nearly every 

 breeding county in England had its local favourites, adapted to their 

 environment of soil, climate, and geographical configuration. For 

 fineness of wool, the Ryeland or Herefordshire sheejj now held the 

 first place in the manufacture of superfine broad-cloth, though in 

 the fourteenth century the fleece of the Morfe Common sheep of 

 Shropshire had commanded the highest prices. Sussex South 

 Downs, inferior in size and shape to their present type, were also 

 famed for the excellence of their soft, fine, curly wools. Dorsetsr^ 

 already prized for their early lambs, supphed Ilminster "with the 

 material for its second, or hvery, cloths. West-country clothiers 

 drew their suppHes, partly from Wales, partly from the large, 

 homed, and black-faced Wiltshires, from the Exmoors, Dartmoors, 

 or Devonshire Notts, the Mendips of Somerset, the Dean Foresters 

 of Gloucester, or the Ryelands of Herefordshire. The eastern 

 counties had their native short-wooled Norfolk and Suffolk breeds. 

 The North had its Cheviots, its Northumberland Muggs, its Lanca- 

 shire Silverdales, its Cumberland Herdwicks, its Cheshire Delameres. 

 Here and there, some local breed was especially famous for the 

 quahty of its mutton, hke that of Banstead or of Bagshot in Surrey, 

 of Portland in Dorsetshire, of Clun Forest in Shropshire, or of the 

 mountain sheep of Wales. But, speaking generally, it was by their 

 fleeces only that sheep were distinguished. The local varieties of 

 short-wools differed widely from one another. In appearance the 

 long-wools were more uniform in type ; all were poUed, white-faced, 

 and white-legged ; all were large-framed, and, from more abundant 

 food, heavier in carcase and in fleece ; in aU the wool was long, 

 straight, and strong. Less widety distributed than the other class, 

 they were also by far the least numerous. In the eighteenth century 

 they probably did not exceed more than one-fourth of the total 

 number of sheep in the country. But the superior weight of their 

 fleeces made their produce more than one-third of the total cKp. 

 Among the long-wools the Cotswolds were, at this time, pre- 

 eminent. Other varieties, better adapted to the special conditions 

 of their respective counties, were the Lincolns, Leicesters, Devon- 

 shire Bamptons, and the Romney Marsh sheep of Kent. 



