ON BREEDING AND REARING ANIMALS. 5? 



much bone and hair as muscle and wool; 

 and what is still as strange, this fashion also ex- 

 tends to the grazier ; his agent at the fair looks 

 out for a coarse frame of bone, and persuades 

 him it will carry more fat ; and this practice is 

 become so general, that the butchers' stalls ex- 

 hibit nothing but large, coarse joints of mutton, 

 consisting of fat sinew and bone ; and small mut- 

 ton is so scarce, that the public are induced to pay 

 one penny per pound more for lamb, from the ge- 

 neral dislike and inconvenience of large mutton : 

 and thus throughout, ignorance and credulity 

 are fed by ignorance and vanity, until reason 

 itself is obliged to give way. Mr. Robinson's, 

 as well as Bakewell's principles, are incontrovert- 

 ible ; and by following the plans and maxims of 

 the former, no doubt the hills and valleys of 

 Wiltshire, Hampshire, Somersetshire, Dorset, 

 Sussex, &c., may be made to breed and fatten the 

 most delicious mutton ; whereas, at present, they 

 are wholly devoted to the rearing of animals 

 which are little better than coarse frames of skin 

 and bones, to be filled up with tallow and grease, 

 by being bloated with artificial food, or in the 

 gross unwholesome pastures of the lowlands and 

 marshes. 



How much would gentlemen, possessing hill 

 farms in those counties, add to the pleasures 

 and comforts afforded by their country, as we* 



