ioo SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



the wethers weigh 14 or 15 Ibs. per quarter. The wool is of 

 fine quality and weighs 4 or 5 Ibs. the fleece. The ewes are 

 prolific, and good nurses, and large numbers of them are 

 sold into adjoining English counties to breed fat lambs by 

 crossing with Shropshire, Leicester and Cotswold rams. The 

 principal fairs are Kington, Knighton and Builth. 



SHEEP OF NORTH WALES. 



That indefatigable writer, the late Mr. John Algernon 

 Clarke, informs us that there is no material difference between* 

 the mountain sheep of the northern and southern counties of 

 the Principality. The best strains of Radnor sheep have 

 already been described as black-faced, although this character 

 is by no means universal among them. Mr. Morgan Evans 

 thus describes the ordinary mountain sheep : " They are 

 principally white-faced, but some have rusty brown faces, 

 some speckled, and others grey. The males are horned, and 

 the ewes generally hornless, though they sometimes have 

 very short horns, and are occasionally found with horns equal 

 in size to those of the rams. The poll is generally clean, but 

 sometimes a tuft is found on the forehead of the ram. The 

 head is small and carried well up, the neck is long and the 

 poll high. The shoulders are low, the chest is narrow, the 

 girth small, and the ribs flat. The rump is high, and the 

 tail long. The average weight of ewes is about 7 Ibs. per 

 quarter. The wethers weigh at three years old 9 to 10 Ibs. 

 per quarter, and the mutton is famous for its delicacy. The 

 average clip of wool is about 5 Ibs. per fleece of fine quality, 

 but in some districts it is mixed with long hairs (Kemps) 

 about the neck and back." 



These little sheep seem to be naturally adapted for the 

 barren and high-lying tracts which they inhabit, and no- 

 successful effort appears to have been made to improve 

 them. In 1865 Mr. H. H. Dixon reviewed the various 

 attempts. The result of a cross with the Scotch Black 



