F A R f.l E R S ' REGISTER. 



599 



ly indebted for ihe late sale of their wliole stock 

 to Mr. A. B. Allen, of IJafralo, under whose ju- 

 dicious and careful management, their excellence 

 will untlouhiodly be preserved, and the public ex- 

 pcctaiion with regard to them, (ully met. They 

 will neiiher be stuffed to plethory, nor starved to 

 pigmies; and considering Mr. Allen to possess 

 the pride and feelings ol' a breeder, we may hope 

 to escape the "culls and runts" of his litters, al- 

 though we may not always be able to command 

 Ills best ; lor it is not to be supposed that anj' 

 '' established breeder of reputation," would sell the 

 refuse of his slock at any price, which would be 

 the infraction of a rule well known to the true 

 breeder — although it has not l)een picked up with 

 other matters of the craft by the (Zca/ers in Berk- 

 shire pigs, who it seems sell all they can raise, at 

 one price or anoiher — if not $i20, why then 203. 



As the intent of your paper is to elicit truth, and 

 serve the farmer, I presume you will not object to 

 giving the above an insertion. I am not now a 

 breeder of the Berkshire, having given my atten- 

 tion to other departments, but I would lend n)y 

 feeble aid to the maintenance of science, against 

 quackery in every shape. D. 



Cambridge, 3Iass. August 31, 1840, 



SIIKUP BREEDING. 



From t!ie Eng. Farmer's MagaziiK!. 



"WliCTi a race of animals have possessed in a sreat degree, 

 through several generations, the properties wliicli it is our 

 object to obtain, their progeny are said to be well bred, and 

 their stock may be relied on ; and it cannot be doubted tliat 

 any breed may be improved in the same manner." — Sir John 

 Sinclair. 



When 1 consider that there are continually 

 grazing on our fertile pastures thirty-two millionfi 

 of sheep, which, exclusive of the carcass, produce 

 a yearly clip of wool of ihe value of seven mil- 

 lions of pounds sterling, em[)loying .350,000 indi- 

 viduals, and ultimately yielding manufactures to 

 the amount of, at least, twenty-one millions of 

 sovereigns annually, my heart expands with Eng- 

 lish pride, and 1 am happy my lot was cast in 

 such a country. But then comes the curdling in- 

 quiry of how is it that the good common sense of 

 the British farmer, with appliances enjoyed by no 

 other aiiriculturist in the world, sull suffers his 

 green hills to be disfigured with such an inappro- 

 priate illegitimate race of sheep 1 Unwilling as I 

 am to cause pain to any one, or to assume supe- 

 riority over brother husljandmen, yet imperative 

 truth forces me to regret that even in the middle 

 of the 19th century the following inconsiderate 

 practice prevails:— A farmer rides a day's jour- 

 ney to a sheep letting, where he sees a number of 

 animals of various pretensions, fetching, according 

 to worth or fancy, from fifty shillings to nearly as 

 many pounds. Now this motley batch of varying 

 priced rams have all been bred in the same bung- 

 ling way from the same fiock, and by the same 

 males. And the sheep that is now making twenty 

 pounds is by the same sire as he that but climbs 

 to Rfiy shillings ; the higher i)riced one being but 

 a chance hit of comeliness, without system in his 

 production, or certainty of what will be iiis pro- 

 geny. It could not have happened otherwise, for 

 had those individual sheep been bred with any 

 Bcience or method at all, there could not have been 



that degrading disparity in the produce of the 

 same flock. But such a ram breeder has no help 

 in him, lor he also yearly goes as fi^ir off for his 

 males (there's a charm in great distances,) vvliere 

 he has picked out one, but also without character 

 or pedigree, with nothing but present external ap- 

 pearances and smell of oil cake to recommend 

 him ; no one being able to predict whether his off- 

 spring will be ringsireaked, speckled, and spotted 

 — whether their laces will be black, gray, or white. 

 At such a market the obtaining a showy sheep is 

 all that can be expected or guarantied — all the rest 

 is clouds, darkness, or uncertainty, and propably 

 the next crop of lambs may show patches of as 

 many breeds, and as many contradictory delects 

 as there are counties in England. Therelbre it 

 cannot be too urgently pressed on the attention of 

 sheep breeders that in hiring rams, a first consi- 

 deration should be to select frum such tnpmastera 

 only as have pedigree, unilbrmity, and character, 

 superadded to a goodly appearance in their gene- 

 ral flock. 



To those fiirmers who are undecided from 

 whence to iiave their next male sheep, I respect- 

 fully submit, do not be saiisfied with merely seeing 

 a score or two of the firstlings of a flock penned 

 up for display. Quietly go over the whole farm, 

 and alter allowance i'ur variety of pasturage and 

 shelter, see whether there is a uniformity in the 

 flock; whether any promiscuous two or three 

 score of them present such an identity as to ren- 

 der it difficult for individuals to be distinguished 

 li"om each other. See that the males are mascu- 

 line, and the females feminine, wiih an liarmo- 

 nious family likeness running through the whole. 

 Then ask the proprietor how he procured even a 

 flock — whether he ciianges it by introducing new 

 and unknown males with every returning-season ? 

 lie will answer in the negative, and say he has 

 tor a quarter or half a century carelijlly bred only 

 fi'om such as he well knew, whose uninterrupted 

 pedigree lie can produce, and during that time his 

 mutton had not deteriorated, nor his wool lost 

 weight nor quality — that he indulges in no auxili- 

 aries, as cake, corn, or seed, for food, or sheds for 

 shelter, but tliat they eat nothing but what is 

 grown on the farm— that they are thereby fortified 

 against debasing influences of every kind, and 

 truly a desirable flock to breed from. My sheep 

 being far short of pei.'ection, though perhaps a 

 stage or two in advance of some of my brother 

 breeders, I beg to describe them. Abiding ever 

 by what I have already said about the head — the 

 head is short, round, and without angle or hollow, 

 a tape passed from the throat round behind the 

 ears shall about equal alike the girth from the 

 throat over the eyes and forehead — a quiet but 

 confident aquiline visage (no pig-laced lady for 

 me)— ears woolly, short, well back and down 

 bent, not rabbit fashioned — the neck not straight 

 lined from the rump, but set on at the shoulders at 

 about a 45 upward angle, nor tapering over deli- 

 cately towards ihe head, but thick, full, and fleshy 

 along its whole length — blade-bones well-spread 

 far back, and showing the chine above their upper 

 working which will produce a large, open, and 

 heavy breast, not pitched downwards as in the 

 greyhound, but rounded up to a frontage like the 

 Ibrekeel of a sliip. This enables the sheep to look 

 well in the face, and gives it a preo-ence as if 

 standing up hill from whatever aspect it may be 



