CHAPTER II. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE BREED -MAKER. 



The breeds of sheep may be classified in several ways : (1) By 

 their features as influenced by their historic origin ; (2) by wool 

 characteristics ; (3) by nature of the land, its richness, altitude, 

 &c., to which they are indigenous ; (4) by their mutt on -producing 

 properties ; and (5) by the intermixture of breeds which have 

 been incorporated by the modern breeder. However, these to 

 some considerable extent merge at points, and a more general 

 division is most practicable. For practical purposes the division 

 into (1) sheep of the rich grasslands (2) sheep of the arable 

 land, and (3) sheep of the hills, heath, and other poor land, is 

 as serviceable as any. Low, who some seventy or eighty years ago 

 wrote so ably on sheep in that delightful book, " The Domesticated 

 Animals of the British Islands," made a distinction between the 

 sheep of the higher hills or mountains, the sheep of the heaths, 

 and the sheep of the rich lowlands, and it has much to commend 

 it ; but in his time there was no Down breed recognised but the 

 Southdown. Since then several breeds originating from heath 

 breeds crossed with the Southdown have been recognised as estab- 

 lished types, such as the Hampshire, Suffolk, Shropshire, &c., 

 all of which carry many features of the Southdown in fact, they are 

 called Down races. But the Southdown itself is a heath breed, 

 the Southdown Hills themselves being somewhat rich chalk heaths. 

 By accepting the term heath as representing those sheep which 

 originated on more or less indifferent pasturage, otherwise than 

 on that found on rich lowland, or the higher hills carrying poor 

 feed, a good many points of confusion in respect to the indigenous 

 types of sheep are removed. The difficulty in respect to the term 

 mountain as applied to sheep is that some of the sheep commonly 

 found feeding at the higher altitudes of the relatively very low 

 mountains of these islands (in comparison with the mountains of 

 many other countries) have common origin with others that have 

 never been associated with the heights. There are, however, 

 some which show no recent (though it be several hundred years', 

 or possibly thousands) direct relationship with the sheep of the 

 heaths or richer plains. Although the evidence is difficult to 

 confirm definitely, there is reason to believe that, in the distan 



