CHAPTER VIII. 



CROSSES AND CROSS-BREEDING. 



The grass -land breeds from the hills and lowlands adjoining 



are making a very pronounced influence on the sheep of the southern 



half of the country, where they are kept both in the pure and cross 



condition, and they are finding a home, especially where there 



is no stock of the indigenous blood remaining. Where, however, 



there is much fattening on swedes on arable land in winter, they 



have not been adopted as much as in those districts where more 



reliance is placed on grass feeding. In counties such as Bucks, 



Beds, Northamptonshire, and part of Cambridge, there is no 



indigenous breed left. The tracts of country of closely similar 



soil in those counties were too small to produce noticeable races, 



and they were shoved aside by the more highly -bred animals from 



more typically sheep districts which had assumed more fixed 



f type. Local breeds were cast aside, and how the food influenced 



the changes was well illustrated to me quite a number of years 



ago by the late Mr. Peacock, of Stanford, Beds, who at that time 



was an octogenarian, and had been recognised for many years 



as a skilled breeder. His memory carried him back to the pre- 



Norfolk rotation days in that county. His earliest recollection 



was of the native heath breed, a white and speckled-faced 



horned sheep (which he described as being lean, gaunt, and 



unthrifty, reaching maturity only when three or four years old, 



and then looking more like a woolled donkey than a well-fattened 



sheep). The Leicester sheep followed as clover growing and 



root culture became more generally adopted, and these were 



subsequently ousted by the Improved Leicester. The general 



adoption of the Four -Course System called for a sheep better 



adapted to folding, and for a short time the Cotswold appeared, 



to be followed by the Oxford Down. Then the West Country 



sheep, of the type found at Illsley Fair, in which there was some 



Hampshire blood, and with an increase in catch cropping for 



spring feed, the definite Oxford -Hampshire cross was more adopted. 



Not a few pure Hampshire Downs have been kept, though as 



breeding stock they have not proved a success on the colder land, 



yet on the chalks they have been quite successful. 



But it must be borne in mind that whilst a breed may not be 

 suitable to be permanently kept as a breeding flock, it may be 



