2 BRITISH SHEEP AND SHEPHERDING. 



with colour and relative size, so as to make a faithful record, rather 

 than a mere picture. Nothing before or since in animal portraiture 

 that I have met with can compare with these in an educational 

 sense. 



Coleman's " British Breeds of Sheep " was illustrated well by 

 Harrison Weir, and, published in 1877, is valuable as showing 

 the breeds about midway between Low's time and the present ; 

 but Low wrote when there was only one Down breed, and when 

 the Hill breeds had been subjected to nothing more than desultory 

 crossing ; the Down breeds of to-day were in the melting-pot, 

 and the moulding to present lines had only been crudely outlined. 

 What the Down breeders have done since that time is to make 

 a record in breed-making that stands out beyond anything ever 

 accomplished with live stock. Of course, before the several breeds, 

 not only of Downs, but the whole range of those which under 

 improvement have come down to us, took definite form, much 

 had been done by the geniuses who handled them in the crude 

 form and, by judicious mating and selection, built up the types. 

 They were the men who had to do the spade-work that made 

 other things possible. What they had to work on is shown in 

 the published illustrations. What they did, however, in no 

 way belittles the great work done by breeders since, and never 

 more actively or with greater success than at the present time. 

 If in subsequent pages, when dealing with the several breeds, 

 I have not dwelt as enthusiastically on the merits of the individual 

 breeds as an enthusiast in a particular breed might be disposed 

 to think they warrant, it is not because of want of merit, but 

 because all are so full of merit that it is unnecessary to impress 

 the fact by redundant repetition. No one appreciates better 

 than I do how grand our British breeds are, one and all. If some 

 remarks are critical, they express merely my personal view, rather 

 as to where things may lead to, than as indicating present deficiency. 

 But I believe we are in some respects at the crossing of the ways 

 in several aspects of sheep-breeding, and it behoves breeders to 

 be careful of the weapons that they use. 



If any evidence were needed as to the probability of some changes, 

 one has only to look at the vast amount of cross-breeding carried 

 on over large districts where little was done until comparatively 

 recent times, and to the modern tendency to adopt breeds in 

 accordance with their usefulness in their district, and not to rely 

 merely on the local choice, which was established when conditions 

 were probably very different from those which prevail to-day. There 

 is certainly more intelligence in the selection of sheep to suit local 

 conditions than was met with in many instances in bygone days ; 

 it is being met both in respect to pure-bred and cross-bred sheep. 

 In other pages these points are referred to from time to time, 



