THE INFLUENCE OF THE BREED-MAKER. 13 



for increasing the fattening propensities. That face -covering is 

 not a necessity has been proved by the Suffolk in its translation 

 from the old Norfolk sheep, which was a typically unthrifty breed 

 when taken in hand. But breeders who saw that they were securing 

 some advantages in other directions, whilst they were getting 

 more head -covering, seem to have put too much value on the 

 head-covering, and some have taken it too far. They have 

 developed, especially among some of the Down breeds, too great 

 a tendency to produce fat, and the quality of the meat has suffered. 

 When they were producing sheep well covered, they had to go to 

 sheep with a special tendency to wool production ; thin fleeced 

 sheep would not have that exuberant tendency to wool production 

 that was necessary to make its growth spread on to parts 

 which for centuries, and possibly from all time, had not carried 

 wool. 



But sheep with great wool tendency are fat producers ; there- 

 fore, in selecting their sheep from the sheep possessing the greatest 

 fat and wool tendency, they have developed sheep which too 

 readily run to fat, and the proportion of lean to fat has suffered. 

 They have tried too much to imitate that essentially wool pro- 

 ducing sheep the Merino. Though it is shown in several of our 

 long-wool breeds that head covering is not essential to the pro- 

 duction of a heavy fleece, it is probable that the efforts to introduce 

 the Merino cross a century or so ago, commonly regarded as a 

 failure, have left more influence behind them than is generally 

 recognised. The value of the wool growing on the nose and below 

 the hocks of sheep, is little more than the expense of cutting 

 it, and in the case of sheep much kept on arable land, excessive 

 wool below the hock is not desirable, because of the tendency the 

 wool has to collect dirt. But a good fleece on the belly is valuable, 

 as sheep provided with it lie warmer on cold ground. It is satis- 

 factory that the Shropshire Down breeders who were early sinners 

 in respect to the development of wool on the nose and down to the 

 fetlock, have sufficiently recognised the position to hold that in 

 future excessive head-covering will not be regarded as a point of 

 merit. 



It does not seem to be recognised sufficiently that our British 

 breeds are not genuine pure breeds ; but that many of them are 

 derived from deliberate crossings, involving two, or as many as 

 five or six, different breeds ; and also that apart from this there was 

 that casual crossing when the Leicester and the Southdown, more 

 than a century ago, were first put on the native breeds. Nor is it 

 recognised that it is not at all necessary for that blood to have 

 been bred out even by this time ; there is no particular reason 

 why it should be. Where flocks have been kept with careful 

 breeding for a long time in straight line, it could not go out, although 



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