METHOD OF DEVELOPMENT 



111 



uniformity of character and perfection of form are the result of 

 selection from home-bred sheep of the best type. Speaking from 

 personal knowledge far back into the last century, I am in a position 

 to assert that no one who has achieved any success as a breeder or 

 exhibitor has deviated from a line of pure breeding for the past 60 

 or 70 years" (Fig. 68). 



There seems to be a preponderance of evidence, however, that 

 cross breeding was practised prior to and during the time the breed 

 was coming into existence. Wilson, Plymley, Tanner, Melden, 



FIG. 67. Shropshire ram, Tanner Royal. First prize, two shear ram, English Royal 

 and International Show in Chicago, 1913. Bred by Alfred Tanner, England. A great sire 

 in the flock of Arthur Broughton and Sons, Albany, Wis. 



Clarke, Spooner, and Wrightson are practically agreed on this point. 

 John Algernon Clarke states that two of the most celebrated found- 

 ers of the breed, Samuel Meire and George Adney, practised crossing, 

 the former using both Southdown and Leicester blood, and the latter 

 only the Southdown cross. W. C. Spooner in an article on cross- 

 breeding, published in volume 20 of the Royal Agricultural Society 

 Report, quoted the following as a part of a speech that M. J. Meire 

 made before a farmers' club in Shropshire County : " It is not 



