HILL AND HEATH BREEDS. 51 



occasionally flocks of black-woolled sheep of high quality, des- 

 cendants of very old strains, are met with. 



The rams have strong curved horns, and the ewes are hornless ; 

 the face and legs are white or tan, the latter being preferred where the 

 sheep are required to go on to high pasturage, as they indicate 

 hardness of constitution. A kempiness or breechiness in the 

 fleece is not objectionable for the same reason. The lambs at birth 

 usually have a well-marked dirty yellow patch on the back of the 

 neck, which shortly disappears. A sheep has been developed which 

 is suitable to be brought out earlier, and, with the arable land 

 having been brought more into sheep farming, many wethers are 

 fattened out on roots in their first year, a great contrast to the 

 three or four years which the unimproved sheep required. 



These sheep now represent a high-class mutton breed, with small 

 joints. The sheep naturally kept weighing about 301b. dead-weight, 

 though, on rich low ground, where they are well treated, they may 

 reach 501b. upwards. The fleece cuts about 2Jlb. for ewes, and 

 31b. to 51b. for rams. 



THE KERRY HILL. 



The Kerry Hill is a Welsh breed, taking its name from a big 

 parish in Montgomeryshire called Kerry. A Flock Book was 

 published for the first time in 1899. They were one of the many 

 strains of Welsh sheep, and their improvement was due to the 

 persistent energy of the farmers about Kerry, and to the good 

 pasturage they found. Mr. Holford, who did so much to further 

 the interests of the race, remembered them seventy or more years 

 ago as a sheep with an all-white or slightly spotted face, with 

 legs to match, and generally of a good type for Welsh sheep of that 

 time. Up to about 1840 to 1850, when much of the land was 

 enclosed, farmers relied on their own stock. He further expressed 

 to me, that at the earlier date it would be fair to say that the Kerry 

 was an intermediate between the Clun and the Radnor until the 

 Shropshire became a noted breed. With the better breeding 

 opportunities enclosing afforded, farmers went further afield, 

 and the Kerry men went to Knighton for stock rams, where they 

 got the Clun Forest sheep at the time, a more advanced breed, 

 raised on good land facing the Kerry Hills. The sheep rapidly 

 improved from the Clun, and also from a slight dash of the Shrop- 

 shire, generally through the Clun. 



In course of time the Kerry men had brought their sheep to 

 type, and selected them to the white with black spots, eliminating 

 the tan, which was characteristic of the Clun. In the main, for 

 the past forty years they have largely depended upon selection 

 from among local flocks, so as to keep the character. The Clun, 



