SHEEP. 993 



CHAPTKR XVII. 



OF the various breeds known to man, the reader is practi- 

 cally interested only in the English and the Spanish, in 

 their different varieties. The English breeds are, first, 

 the long-wooled, comprising the Cotswold, Leicester, and Lin- 

 coln ; second, the short-wooled, the South -Down; third, the 

 middle-wooled, as the Shropshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire all 

 of which are known as Downs, but were originated by crosses 

 between the Downs and the long-wools, and partake of the 

 qualities of one or the other ancestor in proportion as either 

 was preponderantly employed in the several crosses. They are 

 all considered pure breeds. Some of them approach very near 

 the long-wools in length of staple; others, the short-wools. The 

 long-wools are pre-eminent for a long, coarse staple; the short- 

 wools, for mutton; and in the middle-wools the object has gen- 

 erally been to combine these excellences. 



The Spanish Breed, the Merino, is the source from 

 which have sprung, through the influence of climate and the 

 molding hand of man, a number of sub-breeds the French, 

 Saxon, Silesian, American (with a variety known as the Delaine 

 or Black-top), and, possibly, the Australian. The Merino, trac- 

 ing its descent back in a direct line, probably to the flocks of 

 the Patriarchs, was for ages the clothier of civilization first 

 with its skin, in later times with its fleece. So long as that 

 civilization was confined mainly to the sub-tropical belt of 

 Southern Europe, the adaptability of this breed to the vast un- 

 enclosed ranges of those lands, and the careless husbandry of 

 those times, rendered it almost, if not quite, the most valuable 

 of the domestic animals. Its long descent gave it a purity, a 



Contributed by STEPHEN POWERS, Author of Sheep Experience Papers, etc. 



63 



