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LEICESTER SHEEP. 



BY DR. WM. WILLIAMS, OF DAVIDSON COUNTY. 



Mr. Bakewell, a breeder of stock in the shire of Leicester, England, 

 with clear and well-defined ideas in regard to sheep-breeding, created in 

 his own mind an ideal of perfection, and determined to establish a distinct 

 breed of sheep to which he thought no possible objection could be raised. 

 From his own flock, those of his neighbors, and the stock-yards, he selected 

 sheep which he thought were most likely to produce the offspring he 

 wanted. Encouraged by the success of this effort in obtaining a sheep of 

 good form and constitution, he continued his efforts in making selections 

 to cross-breed with. When on a visit to a friend in Lincolnshire who was 

 an eminent stock-breeder, and looking over the flock of sheep his quick 

 eye rested on a ram whose small head, long, round body, short legs, and 

 mellow handling, so pleased him that he prevailed on his friend to part 

 with his best ram. This ram corrected some of the defects of the flock, 

 particularly in the wool, he having a coat of closer texture and of a 

 longer and finer staple. He must have been a splendid one indeed to 

 satisfy Mr. Bakewell, who considered him a prize, "and changed his sys- 

 tem of cross-breeding to that of breeding in-and-in, for the purpose of per- 

 manently fixing the type, which he succeeded in to his entire satisfaction, 

 by making selections of the best of his own flock to breed from, carefully 

 avoiding hereditary defects and diseases. By patience and perseverance 

 his theory of cross-breeding and close-breeding became so well known 

 that his flock of Leicesters soon gained a world-wide celebrity. They 

 were resorted to for the purpose of improving other breeds. The improved 

 Cotswold is a cross between the large, coarse Cotswold and the Leicester, 

 which gave the Cotswold a better form, better constitution, and finer 

 wool. The Oxfordshire is a cross between the Southdown and the Leices- 

 ter, which has produced a sheep having the color of face and legs like the 

 Southdown, and the size, form and fleece differing but little from the 

 Leicester. 



In Tennessee to-day, for general purposes, the Leicester is unsurpassed r 

 if not unequaled, by any other breed of sheep. Compared with the dif- 

 ferent breeds of fine-wool sheep, they are larger and yield more wool> 

 which is worth more per pound. Possessing a good constitution, they 

 fatten as well as the Southdown, have a heavier carcass, a heavier fleece 

 of wool, also worth more per pound. They are not so large as the mag- 

 nificent Cotswold, but they surpass them in symmetry of form, in consti- 

 tution, which insures to them long life, and in the texture of fleece. The 

 ewes are good breeders and good nurses. They very often produce twins, 

 and the twins grow off' as well as the single lambs, which are sought for 



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