Ch. XXXIX.] ON FLESH. 485 



a liglit, loose wool ; " having found," as he says, " from many years' 

 experience, that sheep in the same flock of the former description will" keep 

 themselves in belter flesh than those of the latter*." We, however, warn 

 those breeders who are anxious to obtain large stock, not to breed them 

 of a spurious sort f. 



CARCASS. 



Such were the effects upon the wool : on the carcass it has been differ- 

 ent ; for although the crosses with the improved Leicesters have rather 

 diminished than increased the size of the original Leicester, Lincoln, and 

 Tees-water breeds, yet the smallness of bone and symmetry of form which 

 the animals have thus acquired, have considerably decreased the quantity 

 of offal, and added largely to the dead weight of marketable flesh. 

 Before that time the mutton of those coarse sheep rarely amounted to 

 more than one-half of their live weight; whereas now, the common 

 average — as will be seen by the weight of two Leicesters, recorded in the 

 report of that county, as bred from the Dishley stock, without any extraor- 

 dinary means of feeding — is more than two-thirds; and Dishley wedders, 

 when well fattened, are said to be in the proportion of an ounce of bone to 

 a pound of flesh. 



The cross with the new Leicester rams upon the short-woolled sheep 

 has, however, improved the size of the latter, and has more especially im- 

 parted to them an earlier tendency to fatten : so much so, indeed, that South- 

 downs, which formerly were never brought to market at an earlier ao-e 

 than three years old, nor of a greater weight than from 8 to 1 1 stone, are 

 now constantly seen in Smithfield of much larger weights within two years, 

 and the new Leicesters, completely fat, at about twenty months old ; of which 

 an instance in point is that of a jten of three Southdowns, thirty months 

 old, exhibited at the Christmas Cattle Show of 1835, which weicrjied as 

 follows ; — 



20 St. 31b. .. 20 St. 61b. .. 21st. 



This, no doubt, is a great advantage to the breeder ; but the conse- 

 quence to the consumer is, that he thus eats neither lamb nor mutton. 

 A sheep, in fact, to be in high order for the palate of an e[)icure, should 

 never be killed earlier than when five years old ; at which age the 

 muttt)n will be found firm and succulent, of a dark colour, and full of the 

 richest gravy : whereas, if only two years old, it is flabby, pale, and savour- 

 less. The graziers, indeed, do not admit it: and we constantly read flam- 

 ing accounts in the reports of the shows of stock exhibited in various parts 

 of the kingdom, of pens of wedders, fattened to an enormous size within 

 extraordinary short periods of time ; but if any one chooses to ascertain 

 the difl'ercnce of quality, let him cause an equal weight of one of these 

 young Leicesters, and a five year old Southdown, to be stewed down into 

 broth, and he will find that of the former to be little better than greasy 



* Sussex Report, p. 307. 

 f Russell on l^ract. and Cbem. Agric, p. 288, 



