EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 45 



were of the kind common to England at the time, and were the Wilt- 

 shire, the Eomney Marsh, the Herefordshire, the Norfolk, and the old 

 Southdown or Sussex sheep ; at least, all the characteristics of these 

 breeds could be seen in the different flocks in the eastern and middle 

 States at the beginning of the present century, and such also were the 

 sheep of New York prior to 1804. These sheep, as they appeared when 

 first introduced into the country, are now extinct, but a brief descrip- 

 tion is necessary to show the foundation upon which was reared our 

 sheep husbandry and upon which was also crossed the first Spanish 

 Merinos. 



The old Wiltshire sheep were the largest of the fine-wooled sheep of 

 England, and gave a fleece seldom exceeding two pounds in weight, 

 and which was much prized. They had large horned heads, awkward, 

 ungainly bodies, and were rather greedy feeders, slow in fattening, but 

 occasionally attaining very great weight, some of them running from 

 195 to 250 pounds when fit for the butcher. They were excellent fold- 

 ing sheep, and enabled more corn to be grown in Wiltshire, in propor- 

 tion to its size, than in any other county in England, and it was this 

 virtue that gave them such value to the New England settlers, for 

 folding on corn land was one of the first uses to which sheep were put, 

 and the system pursued in their old Wiltshire homes by the first set- 

 tlers was transferred to their new homes. If possible, the sheep were 

 turned on better grass a little while before they were folded, and had 

 leisure to chew the cud and to digest their food during the hours of 

 ivst; and in the morning, their stomachs being emptied, they were not 

 only able, but eager, to climb hills and traverse stony, hard pastures 

 for their daily sustenance. The ancient Wiltshires have now passed 

 away, but their blood, flowing through the veins of the later Wiltshire 

 Downs, is now with us in the improved Hampshire Downs. 



The Roniney Marsh sheep were so called from a limited tract of low 

 reclaimed land on the southern coast of Kent, at the western entrance 

 to the Straits of Dover. The tract is 14 miles in length, and at its 

 broadest part 10 miles, and diked from the overflowing of the sea, and 

 consists in part of fertile sand, gravel, or peat, but essentially of a deep, 

 rich, alluvial clay, bearing the grasses and other herbage plants abund- 

 antly, and never having been subjected to the action of the plow. The 

 grass was exceedingly rank. There were no hedges or trees to afford 

 shelter. The inhabitants were few in number, and mostly employed in 

 tending the numerous sheep by which the marsh was depastured, and 

 which were reared in greater numbers than in any similar space in 

 Great Britain. Sheep were kept here from time immemorial, and until 

 within the present century were not much changed. They had long, 

 thick heads, and broad foreheads crowned with a tuft of wool. They 

 were flat-sided, wide on the loin, with narrow breasts, a long, thick tail, 

 with large feet on a thick leg. Their bones were large and the neck 

 and body long. Their wool was long and coarse, coarsest on the breast. 



