36 SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



the same system of recorded pedigrees in his flock of Cots- 

 wolds, and the same thing is to be noted in the Romney Marsh 

 flocks of Mr. Neame and of the late Mr. Thomas Finn. Care 

 in breeding is also evinced at Sharsted Court, where the rams 

 are kept apart and the ewes brought to them when in season 

 and mated according to points and peculiarities. 



The Romney Marsh or Kentish Long-woolled sheep of our 

 day is of large size, and is in this respect scarcely excelled by 

 any British breed excepting the Lincolns. A pen of three 

 ewes exhibited by Mr. Henry Rigden, of Lyminge, at a 

 recent Show of the Smithfield Club, weighed 8 cwt. 2 qrs. 

 24 lb., which was only excelled by two pens of Lincoln ewes, 

 which were respectively 9 cwt. i qr. 22 lb. and 9 cwt. 2 qrs. 

 14 lb. The breed is white-faced, hornless, and inclined to 

 be bareheaded. The wool is of long staple and great 

 weight, and in general appearance the breed resembles the 

 heavy long-woolled Lincoln race. Fine specimens are to be 

 seen at our great shows, not only from the true Marsh dis- 

 trict, 'but also from Sittingbourne and other localities of good 

 land, of higher position. 



THE DEVON LONGWOOL. 



This breed has been known for centuries in the neighbour- 

 hood of Bampton or Bathampton, a market town and parish 

 in the hundred of the same name in Devonshire. The old 

 town stands in a pleasant vale, and the houses are built of 

 stone, and are irregularly scattered over a space extending to 

 about half a mile, near the river Batherm. In Bell's Gazetteer, 

 published in 1836, we read " Many sheep are fed in the 

 neighbourhood ; they are of a large size, and of an uncom- 

 monly fine quality, from the excellence of the pastures." 

 Twenty years later Professor Wilson wrote, " It is very difficult 

 to find the pure Bampton unmixed with other blood : a few 

 only remaining in Devonshire and West Somerset." 



The original Bampton Nott was a large-framed, heavy- 



