

EAST OP THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 



441 





thereby maintaining the uniform character which came to be established. 

 Some of the breeders used a Cotswold ram with the Southdown ewe, 

 whence, with a mixture of blood of the various flocks, the blood of the 

 improved Southdown was infused in the cross. For many years after 

 the breed had become recognized as distinct the want of uniform char- 

 acter was a source of criticism, which was met by Mr. Druce with the 

 assertion that he found no difficulty to keep the form and size of the ani- 

 mal as it should be, the wool of a valuable quality and not deficient in 

 quantity; and he maintained that the good qualities could be better 

 secured by employing the cross-bred animals on both sides than by using 

 the first cross. A comparison was instituted with other sheep with this 

 showing as to proceeds of fleece, carcass, single teg, and flock: 



i 



This showing in favor of the cross-breeds was certainly very great, 

 arising of course from the superior quality and therefore higher 

 prices per pound of the mutton as compared with the short-wooled 

 sheep. The question, argued Mr. Druce and his supporters, was not 

 whether any of the long- wools or the short- wools, such as the Cots- 

 wold, the Leicester, the Hampshire, or Sussex Down, should be given 

 up, but whether there was room for another ; whether in fact it did 

 not require in addition a middle-wool breed beside them. But the 

 evident disadvantage of the system of using only a first cross was 

 this, that as most breeders did not breed their own ewes they must 

 be purchased every year, therefore there was no sure dependence 

 upon keeping up a superior breeding stock. 



The difficulty of establishing a new breed, as is well known, consists in the tend- 

 ency of the cross for many generations to revert to one or other of the original 

 races. Still, many farmers have now (1853) for some years bred this sheep, inter- 

 mediate between the long-wool and the Down, and have thereby laid a foundation 

 on which, if it be thought fit, others may build.* 



The success of the early promoters of this breed brought many others 

 into the field, and whereas till within a short period the Hampshire 

 Down was the principal sheep kept south of the Cotswold district of 

 Oxfordshire, the glory of the county soon became the cross-breeds, the 

 improved Cotswold, the most profitable to the butcher, the producer, 

 and the consumer, and after a period of twenty years without infusion 

 of any fresh blood became a distinct breed of sheep, quite as distinct 

 and pure as the Shropshire, and brought to the same uniformity. They 



Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Vol. xiv. 



