LONG WOOLS. 63 



over the tops ; great thickness from blade to blade, or through the 

 heart ; well filled up behind the shoulders, giving a great girth ; well 

 sprung ribs, wide loins, level hips, straight and long quarters ; tail 

 well set on, good legs of mutton, great depth of carcase, fine bone, a 

 fine curly lustrous fleece (the sheep are well woolled all over) free 

 from black hairs, with firm flesh, springy pelt, and pink skin. The 

 general form of the carcase is square or rectangular ; legs well set on, 

 straight hocks, good pasterns, and neat feet. 



BORDER LEICESTER. 



The Border Leicester is a breed in which the Bakewell-Leicester 

 is paramount ; many claim that it is purely descended from this 

 improved Leicester, and, on the showing of such records as are 

 available, there is good support of this ; but as the earliest of the 

 Bakewell-Leicesters were taken into the Border districts by Mr. 

 Culley in 1767, and others soon followed, it would not be difficult 

 for some little unrecognised uncertainty to have crept in, because, 

 until flock books were established, records were kept in an 

 amateurish manner. Moreover, there is no obligation to abide 

 by direct breeding in those circumstances, and, for that matter, 

 he is a bold man who would assert that in the past quarter of a 

 century no foreign blood had been brought into some of the well- 

 known breeds. In the early days of sheep improvement, which 

 was largely instigated by the success of Bakewell's Leicester 

 on other breeds, there was a vast amount of experimental crossing 

 and it would be strange if this improved sheep should not have 

 been used on the Cheviot. But all must be surmise where actual 

 knowledge is not available. If, however, the Border Leicester 

 had no Cheviot in it, the change from the Bakewell-Leicester, 

 as effected by change of environment, must be the most remark- 

 able among our breeds. In fact, if there was not a slight dash of 

 Cheviot blood strained into the border-kept Leicester in remote 

 days, all one can say is the two breeds must have looked long 

 and longingly at one another until some of the elements of sympathy 

 which are said to influence yeaning animals wrought changes. 

 But this is not likely. The change is so pronounced that the 

 Border Leicester breeders moved for separation from the English 

 Leicesters, and there is, indeed, great distinctiveness between them. 

 Some day breeders will more fully recognise the advantage a breed 

 possesses where, in its formation at a remote period, more than 

 one breed took part, and as there is no breed in which it can be 

 proved there has not been a remote admixture, there is little 

 advantage in urging that a breed is poor in the numbers of factors 

 which went to its composition. Wider usefulness and adaptability 

 for wider conditions are associated with the more composite breed, 



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